Into the Unseelie Court
by GeneticallyElvenGryffindor
Summary: Takes place during The Matrix. Everyone needs to train and Pixie is no exception. She and Neo take some time to train and wind up learning a thing or two about each other and the nature of the Matrix along the way.
1. Bad Days

AN: This mini-story sort of came about while playing "The Matrix: Path of Neo." See, there's one training level where Neo trains with Trinity. That got me thinking about the parts of his training they don't show in the movie. Maybe he got to train with other members of the crew of the _Nebuchadnezzar_ like in the video game. The idea kept bouncing around in my brain until this wandered out. Again, like all my other stories about Pixie, this was just written to pass the time and to get an idea out of my head. As for where it fits into Pixie's story, it happens sometime during "In the Fairy's Ring" but after Neo's freed from the Matrix….except the last part. That takes places after "In the Fairy's Ring." As before, I'm open to any and all constructive criticism! I want to hear what you're thinking…good, bad, or indifferent!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"You're sorta stuck where you are  
But, in your dreams you can buy expensive cars,  
or live on Mars and have it your way…" (From "Bad Days" by The Flaming Lips)

Pixie, halfway through what was proving to be one of the longest days in recent memory, had come to the conclusion what she wanted to do was run through some kind of complicated, puzzle ridden maze until she felt better. Using her head--using her brain more appropriately --was one of the few ways Pixie knew to de-stress, so to speak. Most people her age, nineteen years of age, found thinking to be stressful but Pixie enjoyed it. It was one of the few hobbies she had during her days on the floating tin can that was the _Nebuchadnezzar_. If she wasn't working, Pixie spent much of her free time studying, as silly as that sounded because she was a Pod Born, or thinking about things that had little to do with her current job.

Every so often there were puzzles thrown in but those made her think so Pixie wasn't sure if that counted as a different activity or not. She liked to, sometimes, think it was a different activity just so she had one more thing to do while she wasn't working.

She figured she needed a good run through a program that involved more puzzles than actual martial arts or weapons practice, after the sort of day she'd been having.

It wasn't a bad day-- She'd had worse days than the one she was having. Days that were so awful that she didn't like to think about them now. Hospital bed bound bad days in a previous life as a person she, some days, wanted to pretend didn't exist. --but it wasn't a banner day either. It wasn't the type of day she'd call home and tell Rain or whoever was on the other end of the line about.

It might have been the type of day she talked to Wheeler about but his ship, the _Shatterpoint_, wasn't at the same broadcast depth as the _Nebuchadnezzar_. Pixie knew she'd have to wait a while to tell him about this day. She knew he'd not so much like to hear about it but Pixie had a funny feeling this story would interest him for other reasons.

The young woman's day started off just like any other day on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. She woke herself up, shoveled down what could creatively be called a meal-- All the while physically reminding herself not to think of mashed human brains since that was what the goop they ate reminded her of for some reason. She'd never actually seen mashed human brains but that was what her mind decided to equate the single celled protein with no matter how hard she tried to think otherwise. --and went on her merry way.

Pixie had always been good at doing what she was told to do, at least that was what her professors in the Academy had written on her evaluation sheets. Following orders to the letter was one of the few services she felt she was able to provide.

Though she was quite good with following orders to their letter, Pixie was entirely capable of free thinking, as was everyone else in Zion as opposed to those trapped in the Matrix. She wasn't the type to sit and blindly follow orders because that was what she was told to do, especially if said orders went against her own feelings or instincts. The young woman wouldn't do things she found morally objectionable as she couldn't bring herself to do such things. There were a few practices that doctors of Nordic extraction undertook that Pixie, herself, knew she'd never be able to do even if she was told. They were just too physically and morally disgusting that she couldn't bring herself to do them.

Sure it seemed to work against the fact she was so good at following orders given to her but according to a certain tall, dark skinned, bald captain she worked under, her ability to think for herself was paramount to her ability to follow the orders she was given. Since Pixie thought for herself, had her own ideas and thoughts in her head, she was able to follow only the orders that felt right and change the ones that felt wrong to more...agreeable...versions of said orders.

Pixie wasn't sure if that was true or not but she didn't say anything. Everyone was allowed to have their own thoughts. Everyone was allowed to make their own assumptions, whether they were right or wrong. She figured it was part of human nature to make such assumptions, despite the fact they were, often, unfairly made. It seemed engrained in the human mind to make snap decisions whether they wanted to or not.

Either way, there was a very small part of her was secretly pleased to earn such praise from her captain. Morpheus was one of the most famous-- and, probably, the most infamous, --captains in the fleet so him saying something like that was major since Pixie felt she was just, well, Pixie. She wasn't quite as skilled as the individuals she worked with so earning any kind of praise from her captain was a big deal to her, even if she celebrated it in secret.

Pixie's day was no different from any other day on the ship she called home; at least it started that way anyway. She'd been working in the bowels of the _Nebuchadnezzar_, her small and wiry frame made her more than able to fit into tight corners to do repair work there, when a call came up for her to report to the medical bay. Wiping her hands on an already filthy rag, counterproductive but the best she could do given the circumstances, the medic-in-training trotted off to see what new task she was being called to do.

Despite the fact a great deal of her time was spent doing repair work and wandering around the Matrix trying not to draw anyone's attention--something she was extremely good at for some very odd reason --, Pixie had trained to be an on-ship medical officer. Technically speaking, at the moment, her title was "medic-in-training".

She'd had all the proper programs for being an on-ship medic uploaded into her waiting brain but nothing could replace the practical, hands on training. The logic was not lost on Pixie who'd been more than a little nervous when it came to working with live patients. Downloads could only teach someone so much. People were a whole lot more unpredictable than the computer models made them seem.

What waited for her in the medical bay, however, was not something Pixie expected. A prime example as to why the practical was just as important as the uploaded lessons in her head.

The way the voice on the on-ship communicator-- Pixie was tempted to say it had been Morpheus who summoned her but she wasn't entirely sure. There was quite a bit of static on the line. --made it sound, there was some big injury for her to help tend to. Pixie had come running expecting to see the worst.

It wasn't the worst, what she was now seeing. Instead, what she saw before her was more a testament to human stupidity-- one thing that managed to exist in the programmed reality of the Matrix and the Real World, much to her disappointment --than anything else.

Pixie was one of three rookies-- Though she'd grown uncomfortable with the title now. The young woman and her two peers been on the craft for almost a year and they'd recently unplugged someone new. In Pixie's mind, he should be the rookie. Not that she'd saying anything, of course. --who'd been accepted on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. Standing before her was one of her fellow rookies in a rather sticky situation, literally speaking.

Hawk, a boy she'd thought she'd known from her Matrix days, had wound up covered in some sort of tacky, tar like substance. She hadn't a clue what the substance was nor where it came from. Pixie wracked her brain for what it could, possibly, be but found that she was coming up empty. The best she could come up with was some sort of sealant used between pipes or in cracks or something like that.

Whatever the mystery substance was, though, it had caused some sort of massive rash on the exposed parts of the young man's body. Since he hadn't been wear gloves-- Pixie suspected he probably should have been but he was ignoring that rule. --both his hands had swollen up to the point where he couldn't bend or flex his fingers to treat himself. Not that Hawk knew how to treat himself but that wasn't the point.

Given the situation, it was up to Pixie to treat him. Dozer, the ship's medic and her mentor, was busy piloting the _Nebuchadnezzar_ with Morpheus. He'd put in the call for Pixie to treat Hawk, stating that it was easy enough for her to do. Besides, he told her, it was high time she started working alone.

Though she was nervous, Pixie was more than willing to try working alone, especially if it was something not too life threatening. There was just one problem with the situation she was being put in.

She and Hawk had been friends once upon a time but their friendship had fizzled when they were still in the Academy together. In Pixie's mind, "fizzled" was too weak a word for what had happened to the situation that could have been deemed their "friendship".

"Violent Explosion" was more a better turn of phrase to use for what happened between her and Hawk. Hawk had threatened to leave Pixie in a billion broken pieces but her real friends-- People who worked on other ships --had put her back together. It was around that time she stopped calling Wheeler, Aisling, Adoh, and Ngaio "friends" instead of "allies." She'd learned from Hawk that friends, real friends, wouldn't run someone down as badly as he tried to that day.

Then there was the fight the pair had during their early days on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. What was supposed to be an honorable spar between two rookies had taken an ugly turn when a 

frustrated Hawk had used floorboards from the virtual dojo to try and knock Pixie out. It was from then on the two had been banned from sparring together.

This wasn't the Construct-- it wasn't a virtual training program. --though nor was it the cafeteria in the Academy. They were someplace in a tunnel and Pixie was the medic. Hawk could do little to her in his current condition, or so she figured.

Pixie had spent the better part of what she assumed was the day-- The young woman was still working on the whole timing thing when she didn't have a clock around to tell her the exact time. --on the _Nebuchadnezzar _trying to ease Hawk's itchy rashes and get the swelling to go down to a manageable level. She was just trying to get him comfortable so the medication she was giving him could get to work and she could go on her merry way.

More than once, Pixie had been tempted to just knock the boy out just to stop his running narrative about how the accident that left him covered in the tar like substance wasn't his fault. That was the only reason she wanted to finish up as quickly and efficiently as she could. It wasn't her place to decide who was at fault; it wasn't her place to judge. However, Hawk felt she needed to hear the story anyway.

Knocking Hawk out wasn't a viable option, medically speaking. As long as Hawk could talk she knew the swelling hadn't reached his exposed throat. If he could speak, then he could breathe and that was a very good thing. She'd just have to put up with the narrative so she could make sure he could breathe without hooking Hawk up to a monitor for that purpose.

With Hawk back in his bunk, an IV full of corticosteroids running into his left arm to counteract the swelling, Pixie went in search of a way to relax her mind. Alright, maybe a maze full of puzzles and traps and tricks wasn't exactly conductive to resting one's mind but, for Pixie, it was fun. It was the topic of much joking among her friends back in Zion, how Pixie used puzzles to relax her mind.

For some strange reason, Pixie, even in her Matrix days, had the uncanny ability to solve puzzles. Most puzzles anyway. Puzzles involving numbers and math held little enjoyment for Pixie. The solutions to those types of puzzles didn't come quite as easily to Pixie as to the solution of a puzzle using symbols or letters.

"Tank, can I…" Pixie started, tailing off once she saw what was going on in the ship's Core.

The room was quiet, which was normal unless there was a freeing or an emergency taking place, save for the muted tapping of computer keys on the part of Tank the Operator. There was a certain stillness about the room that made Pixie almost sorry she'd disturbed it. The young woman wasn't prone to being a noisy person so breaking the stillness and silence in the room was a bit of a big deal for her.

One look around the metallic space was enough to make Pixie realize just why the room was still and just why her query had died even before she'd gotten around to asking it. Strapped into one of the hanging chairs-- Chairs that, for some strange reason, always reminded Pixie of dentist's chairs. --was the newest member of their crew, Neo. Pixie couldn't tell, not from the entrance way of the Core anyway, what he was doing but she figured he was probably jacked into some training program.

Pixie knew the ship's training programs very, very well. Even after spending a year aboard the _Nebuchadnezzar_, she made frequent use of the programs. Though her formal training, if it could be called that, had been completed within days of her arrival on the craft, the young woman continued to use the programs in an effort to try and improve the skills she had.

The other individuals she worked with on a daily basis were rather famous in their field, so to speak. They were well known both in Zion and in the false reality that was the Matrix. Compared to them, Pixie knew she was small potatoes. She was no really big deal when it came to feats in the Matrix.

Still, that knowledge didn't stop Pixie from pushing herself. She wanted to make herself better, stronger, and faster so she could, at least, attempt to be on par with the others. Pixie didn't enjoy the idea of being the weak link in the chain, even in her own mind. She wanted to be able to pull her own weight, do her part, and never be the cause of anyone getting hurt. The Matrix was a dangerous place for people like them and she wanted to be able to protect not only herself but the people she worked with as well.

She'd been weak once before, been at the mercy of others and Pixie hadn't liked it. The young woman figured since she was able to push herself now, she should take every opportunity she could to work as hard as humanly possible. Make up for all those years when she'd been weak.

"Sorry I asked," Pixie murmured, wandering over to where Tank was sitting. "What's he doing?"

The Operator swiveled in his chair, regarding the young woman his older brother was training. Pixie was the quietest of the three rookies Morpheus had brought onto the ship the year before. She rarely spoke and, when she did, it was in an almost whisper. The fact she was so quiet and kept to herself could have been taken as her being snobby but Tank decided she was just shy. After all, she'd been shy when they freed her at fifteen so he assumed that didn't change all that much.

Pixie was mildly infamous on the_ Nebuchadnezzar_ but not for her actions within the Matrix like the others. Sure her freeing a few years ago her freeing had been a rather interesting event-- Tank couldn't remember anyone under the age of twenty-one nearly dying of heart failure as they were released from the Power Plant. --but, other than that, Pixie was known for just one thing.

Pixie was the only member of the resistance that anyone could think of that kept their hair as long as she did. The young woman was known for her waist length black-brown hair. Keeping her hair as long as she did was seen as a bit odd-- after all hair that long was hard to care for on a ship --but Pixie still wore it that way.

More often than not, Pixie kept her hair loose. There were a rare few times, though, when she wore it pulled back and away from her pale face. At the moment, it was in a long, whip-like braid that hung down the center of her back. The way she wore her hair whenever she was doing repair work around the ship.

"Video game training," Tank answered, around a small chuckle.

A laugh that Pixie echoed when she turned her attention towards screens that surrounded the Operator's console. Dressed in something that sharply reminded the Pod Born young woman of something out of any number of ninja movies that had been shown in the group home she lived in, Neo ran to and fro in a tunnel like world, trying to avoid being seen by white or red clad opposing ninjas.

The program-- Pixie wasn't sure who created it. It had been on the ship before her assignment and she'd trained with the program just as Neo was doing. --could have also 

been taken out of any video game from the Matrix. That was probably why is had the moniker it did.

It just always struck Pixie as funny because Tank had never played Matrix video games so, in theory, the name shouldn't have made him laugh. It did though and despite the fact he might have never played them Tank knew more Matrix popular culture than Pixie did and Pixie had come from the Matrix.

"Oh..." the medic-in-training sighed, a small hint of disappointment seeping into her voice.

Pixie was, generally, unreadable or, at the very least, figured she was hard to read. She kept to herself most of the time, trying not to bother anyone. It was a privacy issue since she'd grown up in a world without any privacy. Her life in the Matrix hadn't exactly been her own. It was a parade of hospital visits, where she was poked and prodded, and living in a group home with kids in her age group. Sure, they left her alone but it wasn't exactly privacy.

Though they, basically, lived on top of each other Pixie found that she had more privacy on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ than she ever had in her entire life. It was something she was thankful for and something she valued. The young woman wasn't sure how much of said privacy was imagined but, still, she was grateful for it. She enjoyed being able to call even her small room her own space.

"You can go in with him, you know," Tank pointed out, noticing the small change in Pixie's voice.

Pixie gave the Operator a strange look, half shocked, half curious. She knew what Morpheus thought Neo was. He had to be something special otherwise they wouldn't have tried to free him at an older age. Pixie wasn't sure if she thought he was the One-- She was a creature of logic, at her roots --but she figured he had to be something amazing. After all, he'd not only survived his unplugging but learned so much in the few weeks he'd been awake.

"Are you sure it's alright? I don't want Morpheus getting angry or anything," Pixie rambled. "I mean, I know he wants Neo well trained and everything. I don't want to mess that up with him."

Putting her hands behind her back and messing with her hair and the back of her sack-like sweater, Pixie added, "That is, I don't want him getting hurt because of something I did in there. Besides, we all know that my preference is for puzzles and I don't want Neo getting all baffled and stuff because of them. Not that I'm saying he would have trouble with them but...I don't know. I mean there's no question he's intelligent and could probably handle the puzzles I like but….what if something went wrong. Besides, I don't know if puzzles are what Morpheus wants Neo trained for. It's not exactly common to come across them in the Matrix or, at least I haven't but, again, that's just me."

Tank gave the young woman a bit of a strange look-- There were times when he had to forcibly remind himself that Pixie was nineteen and not younger. --and pointed out, "Morpheus wants Neo prepared for anything the Matrix might throw at him. You never know what puzzles it might present him with. Besides, I think he hasn't had the chance to train with the resident mistress of puzzle solving."

A blush crossed Pixie's face, staining her cheeks a bright shade of pink. She looked away, eyes focusing on the tops of her boots instead of the Operator sitting before her. Pixie 

wasn't sure she was that good with puzzles. It was just something she happened to have a slight skill with. It wasn't anything special in her mind.

"Are you sure?" she repeated; just to be sure it was alright for her to enter the Construct while Neo was making use of one of the programs. "I don't want to mess up his training or anything."

"It's fine, Pix," Tank assured her. "Go get yourself loaded up."


	2. View to a Kill

AN: I really didn't mean for this update to be up so late. Blame my New York Mets if you have to. They're trying for a playoff spot and all of us fans are doing everything we can to…will…them into the post season. Most of us have rituals we follow in order to do that. Sure, most of us know what we're doing has absolutely no effect on how the team plays but I guess it makes us feel better, like we're helping the cause. Me? I change what I'm writing whenever the Mets lose, trying to find what works to make sure they keep winning. Losing streaks are the most annoying! I keep changing what I'm writing and wind up lost midway through a bunch of different stories. Anyway, sorry about the delay. I hope this chapter makes up for it. OH! The title of the story! In order to answer a few questions about it! "Unseelie" is pronounced "Un-see-lee." What the Unseelie Court is, well, that's a little harder to explain. According to Scottish folklore, fairies are classified in two ways: the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. The Seelie Court-- the "Blessed Court" --is made up of helpful, kind fairies that are, traditionally, thought to be beautiful to look at. The Unseelie Court-- the "Unholy Court" --is thought to be the polar opposite of the Seelie Court. The Unseelie Court is unkind to mortals and sends out a "Host" that torments any unlucky human who happens to see them. They're traditionally thought to be more or less, ugly in appearance. I hope this clears up the confusion! To anyone who's read this story, thanks for taking time out to read it. To anyone who's left me a review or put my story on alert, you rock like a box of socks. Remember, I'm open to any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, good, bad, or indifferent. Just let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Meeting you with a view to a kill  
Face to faces, secret places, feel the chill

Night fall covers me  
But you know the plans I'm making  
Still overseas,  
Could it be the whole lot opening wide  
A sacred why  
A mystery gaping inside  
A week is why

Until we dance into the fire…" (from "View to a Kill" by Duran Duran)

Neo, clad in a coal black karate uniform, complete with a red "Karate Kid" style headband around his head, dashed about the underground labyrinth that spread out around him. He wandered through the stone tunnels that made up the claustrophobic confines he wandered through. The tunnels, themselves, were piled with boxes and odd bits of rusting machinery. Among the boxes and rusting refuse a clan of ninjas made their home. A clan of ninjas that all seemed to be gunning for Neo, so to speak.

The hair on the back of Neo's neck stood on end as he darted for cover, narrowly avoiding a patrol of red clad ninjas. The entire compound-- if one could call the underground space a compound anyway --had been put on alert after he failed to silence the first patrol of ninjas he'd come across. Since then, Neo had been alternately running and fighting for his life.

The strange thing was that none of the danger he was in was real. True, Neo had learned he could be hurt in this underground maze but the danger was programmed and watched over. If he were to get into too much trouble, find himself in a situation he couldn't fight or run out of, he'd be taken out of the program.

Everything in underground complex Neo found himself standing in looked and felt real. Then again, Neo suspected that most of what he'd felt was real wasn't real at all. It was, in all actuality, the furthest thing from real.

Everything Neo-- then going by the name Thomas Anderson --experienced was just a figment created by malevolent machines. All was part of a neural network called the Matrix. His entire life-- up until a few weeks ago anyway --was nothing more than a figment of some machine's imagination, if they had imaginations.

Neo, as Thomas Anderson, was nothing more than a player in a video game. He was a nothing more than a Sim-- a being created out of data and nothing more, who was controlled by some outside force --in a world of something else's creation. Whoever was controlling him, Neo decided, must have had a sick sense of humor to make his life what it was during his days in the Matrix.

If what he had could be called a life anyway. It was more an existence than anything else. An existence that was punctuated by his search for the elusive Morpheus and a question that drove his quest and his late nights in front of his computer.

Now, Neo knew his body rested in the Real World while his mind wandered a false, video game based reality. He was a character in one of the many games he remembered playing during his time in the Matrix doing things he'd only imagined doing during his "stay" in the false reality. Well, he thought he played and imagined.

Either way, though, Neo was busy playing ninja-- part of his martial arts training, he'd been told --and alternately enjoying himself and being more than a little amazed at his newfound skills.

"Neo, you hear me?" a voice boomed, crackling from someplace above Neo and breaking the almost oppressive silence in the cave.

Though it had been disconcerting at first, the newly unplugged male was getting use to how things worked in the new world he was told he had to call home. There were still plenty of disconcerting things in this new reality but Neo knew he had no choice but to get use to them. After all, he couldn't go back to his old life, even if he wanted to. That was what Morpheus had told him and what the others had confirmed.

He'd taken the red pill to learn the truth and now he had to live with the consequences of his choice. Part of that was learning about the Real World and discovering what abilities-- Abilities Morpheus swore were supposed to be great enough to end the war they'd been fighting --were and refining said abilities.

"Yeah, I hear you Tank. What's going on?" Neo called out, still feeling a little foolish since he was, really, speaking to the air around him.

Or what he thought was the air around him. Morpheus never did go into detail about the whole "air he was breathing" thing he'd mentioned during their first spar.

"When you go into the next area, one of the members of the crew are going to be joining you," Tank answered, "and the program's going to change just a little. Don't worry if things get out of focus for a few seconds. I'm just changing things on my side to allow for your new teammate."

Neo nodded his head, knowing that Tank would see him. He was, after all, watching him run through the program on the pretense that he'd pull him out if he were to get hurt too badly. It had come as a shock to the man's system when the first punch he took from one of the opposing video game ninjas hurt like he'd actually been punched.

Morpheus had said that his mind made everything he felt in this virtual space real. Neo guessed this was another case of that happening. He came out of these training programs peppered with bruises from opposing ninjas.

The space around him fell silent again-- save for the occasional hiss of steam that came out of one of the vents in the walls of the tunnel --as Neo noticed the tunnel he was standing in fuzz out of focus for a brief moment and go back to normal.

Well, normal for what the surrounds were. Part of Neo wanted to go into the next room-- He wasn't going to lie. Playing these virtual games were quite a rush for him. --but another part of him wasn't exactly keen on the idea.

Every time another member of the _Nebuchadnezzar_'s crew decided to pay Neo a visit in whatever training program he was in at the moment, he always wound up feeling a bit foolish for even trying to do whatever he was doing. These people were famous-- or infamous, in some cases --and they were obviously good at their jobs.

Even the two younger boys-- nineteen year old Hawk and Mouse if he remembered correctly --had an air of confidence around them whenever they were in a program with him. It might have been all an act, a way to seem bigger and more impressive than they actually were but they still seemed extremely confident about what they were doing, especially Hawk who gave orders as if he was captain of the ship and not Morpheus.

The only one he hadn't the occasion to train with was the quiet medic-in-training. The short statured young woman-- Though Neo had thought she was a young girl when he first met her --who he started to think of as Dozer's pale shadow because she was always standing with him in the craft's medical bay.

If it wasn't for the fact she'd admitted to him that she was from the Matrix and showed him the plugs in her skin Neo would have though the shy young woman was from Zion, like Tank and Dozer. He also had a hard time believing that she was nineteen years old but that was true as well. She'd confirmed it more than once, telling him that you had to be over eighteen to work on a ship and she was over eighteen.

The only reason Neo figured he hadn't had the opportunity to train with the young woman called Pixie was the fact she was training to be a medic. Medical skills, maybe aside from some battlefield first aid, were no help in the Matrix, if what he'd heard about the false reality was true. The skills Pixie was learning were better suited for work on the ship, putting people back together after they fell apart in the Matrix.

Steeling himself for whatever new twist Tank had thrown into the program in order to accommodate his new teammate, Neo eased around a bend in the tunnel. Thinking as if it was a video game-- it was in many ways --he figured he was headed for the next area. Knowing video games just like anyone who came out of the Matrix, knew that entering a new area meant new dangers and the possibility of a boss or mini-boss.

Peering around a stack of crates that took up most of the space in the tunnel Neo was standing in; it seemed that he was at the center of the tunnels. He'd found the heart of the ninja's stronghold so to speak.

The room-- a circular chamber that had three tunnels on the far side, heading off to the right, left, and down the center --was full of red clad ninjas bearing scorpions on the backs of their jackets. Said ninjas seemed to be more interested in sparring each other than in the fact Neo had wandered into their midst.

Counting himself lucky-- since he had to be outnumbered ten to one --Neo started to slip towards what he thought was the closest exit. He knew he'd been placed in this program to train his martial arts skills but being out numbered didn't seem like a good way to train. It seemed like the quickest way to get pulled from the program, even with the help that was supposed to be joining him in this new room.

Neo figured he was in the clear until one of the virtual ninjas, standing on one side of the large space, seemingly watching the others spar, noticed Neo. His eyes, black and blank, locked onto Neo's white clad figure and his virtual body went completely rigid.

"Intruder!" the virtual ninja bellowed, his shout stopping the sparring that was going on around him. "Attack!"

Moving as if they were one being, the red clad ninjas headed for Neo. Though their eyes weren't real, Neo was almost sure he saw murderous intent gleaming from their dark depths. It was obvious they were to keen on their idea of their stronghold being invaded by a single man wearing the garb of a rival ninja clan.

Neo braced himself for the attack and beating he knew was going to follow when he noticed that he wasn't alone. The red clad ninjas had a second target who just happened to be near Neo's location. Suddenly, Neo realized that he might not have been their target in the first place. Their target might have been this other individual who seemed to appear out of thin air.

Perched on its haunches like a cat atop a stack of crates, was a smaller figure. Where Neo and his rival ninjas were dressed in more traditional martial arts gear, the small individual on the boxes was dressed in a rather...strange...style.

He or she-- Neo was leaning more towards the figure being a female because he or she was slight in both height and build. --was clad in a form fitting, black body stocking with a high collar. The sort of thing Neo thought he saw some group of modern dancers wear once upon a time. A female co-worker had dragged him to see a bunch of dancers perform traditional Isadora Duncan pieces. He'd been bored the entire time and she'd never called him again.

Though it looked like something a dancer from that ill fated performance might wear, there was a definite Far Eastern flair to it. The body stocking appeared to have a single closure, a single flower shaped button pulled through a loop of elastic and set on a right handed diagonal. As if to offset it, just near the left shoulder was some sort of symbol. Since the figure was crouched, it was hard for Neo to tell just what that symbol was.

Like so many things in the created reality of the Construct, the small figure's outfit was highly detailed. The top of high collar-- brushing the small figure's jaw line --was outlined in neon green. The same neon green could be found on the paultrons that were attached to the shoulders by green ties. The paultrons reappeared as elbow and knee guards, the same bright green attached by green ties. A sword, Asian in style like the rest of the clothing, was tied to the figure's narrow waist by a bright green sash.

The figure looked over at Neo, studying for a long moment him with brandy brown eyes colored eyes. The rest of her face, though, was blocked by a silvery mask. The mask tied around her head with a neon green cord, underneath a high ponytail, and obscured her nose and mouth making it impossible to see anything about this small individual other than his or her eyes.

Not that the figure's eyes were on him for very long. As quickly as they'd tracked onto him, they returned to the crowd of enemy ninja that had amassed near them.

Neo wasn't entirely sure who the figure was nor did he have time to stop and think about it. The ninja-- he figured he or she was some kind of ninja, the way they were dressed --leapt lightly off of her perch and into the crowd of ninjas. Within moments, Neo lost sight of the small figure, her slight height being dwarfed by not only the height of the ninjas but the sheer volume of ninja around them.

The older male hesitated for a moment, before jumping into the fray, lashing out at the opposing ninjas with his fists and feet. The two of them might have been sorely outnumbered but he wasn't going to run and leave the smaller figure by his or herself. That just didn't seem fair.

Even if it turned out that his oddly dressed company was the "boss" of the training simulation, he didn't want to leave him or her alone. Though it was tempting to let to boss-- if he or she was the boss to begin with --get beaten silly by his or her own minions. That would put a quick and easy end to the simulation.

As the battle raged, part of Neo wondered where the other individual was. The Operator had said that the game was going to change because someone from the _Nebuchadnezzar_'s crew was going to be joining him in the next room. If someone was going to join him in this game, Neo hoped their arrival would be sooner rather than later. The numbers were starting to wear on him. What's more, he hadn't seen hide or hair of the smaller, figure who'd jumped into the fray before him.

Each new fight that sprung up, seemingly after the one before it ended, was starting to become mind numbing. The throwing of kicks, and flips and blocks, the flurry of motion that began and ended each onslaught was becoming strangely dull to Neo. The more Neo fought, the less he found he had to think about fighting, as strange as that sounded. Everything just seemed to flow in an odd way, his reflexes working to keep his body safe.

Still there was the numbers game to contend with. The room had been relatively full of ninjas and it was starting to catch up with him. Though he could feel his reflexes responding, Neo also knew he was getting tired. His body-- His mind? He wasn't entirely sure --wasn't use to the sort of strain he was putting on it. He'd never taken on more than two or three ninja at a time.

It wasn't until the lights gave out-- plunging the room into darkness --that the fighting stopped. No one knew who was friend or foe, so no one attacked. Instead orders were shouted in both English and an Asian sounding dialect.

Neo found himself disorientated for a moment, lost in the darkness that engulfed the space. He could barely see his hand before his eyes; such was the absoluteness of the darkness around them. The darkness seemed to heighten his senses, making him hyperaware of everything. There were subtle noises of booted feet on the rocky ground all around him as the ninja he'd been fighting scuttled to find him or a way to get the lights back on. He air was warm, uncomfortable so, and it pressed against his bare arms and face with a weight all its own.

A weight made worse by the fact he was feeling a bit tired. Now that the adrenaline rush of battle had faded, his arms felt like lead and his legs felt just as stiff.

The heavy feeling didn't stop him from taking a swing at something that clamped itself onto his arm and tried to lead him away.

"Come on," a muffled voice-- definitely the muffled voice of a young woman --hissed, the sound ghostly in the blackness around him. "This is only going to last for so long and I don't want to be here when they come back!"

There was something familiar about the voice, something in the small, hushed tone that said this person was trustworthy. With that thought in mind, Neo allowed the owner of the quiet voice to lead him along.

It wasn't long before his eyes were dazzled by the dull light of some tunnel, though Neo couldn't really say which tunnel it was. The sudden plunge into darkness had all but demolished his sense of direction. Neo couldn't even say if this was the tunnel he'd entered the central room from.

When his eyes decided to behave themselves, Neo found himself propped up against the tunnel wall, tucked into a natural crevasse in the wall that was partially covered by piles of boxes. A quick look around the small space let Neo know he wasn't alone. Crushed in with him, back on her haunches, was the strangely dressed figure from the other room.

As close as he was now, the newly unplugged male could see that the figure was, indeed, that of a young woman. One that, as part of his mind so kindly pointed out, could probably do with some filling out. The figure before him looked more like a girl than a young woman, really, with her hair pulled back into a long braided ponytail and her small, thin frame.

The figure on the left side of her body stocking, the one he hadn't been able to see before, was that of a pixie or a fairy of some kind. It flew sideways, in profile so that one could see both its tiny wings in, almost, mid-flutter.

Neo realized that seen that particularly image before, the small, sideways flying fairy. Pixie, the ship's medic in training, wore the same sort of fairy around her neck on the end of a small, thin chain. He'd seen the item slip out of the baggy sweatshirts she seemed fond of wearing and catch the ship's bare lights. What struck Neo as funny and, maybe, just a little strange, was the fact when that happened Pixie would stuff the charm back into the folds of her clothing. Almost as if she didn't want anyone to see it.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice still muffled by the mask she was wearing. "Those ninja didn't hurt you too badly, did they? I did my best to try to stop as many as I could but we were really outnumbered in there."

"No, I'm alright. You were the one who cut the lights, weren't you?" he wanted to know.

The figure nodded her head, removing the mask she'd been wearing to reveal a curious sort of smile. The type of smile that was pure mischief and very little else. With such a smile on her face, Neo was almost tempted to say she looked like the creature she had on her body stocking. She looked almost like an elf...almost like a pixie.

It was then Neo realized that he wasn't staring at some sort of person programmed by Tank. Instead, the person that was crouched next to him was plugged into the game, just like he was. Another look at the elven featured face, one just so he was sure he was correct, Neo was almost sure Pixie, herself, was crouched on the ground with him.

"I also didn't know you went into the Matrix, Pixie," Neo added, stating what he'd long thought was true. "I figured you being a medic and all, you'd only work on the _Nebuchadnezzar_."

"I'm only a medic-in-training, technically," the young woman offered, setting the mask she'd been wearing on the ground next to her. "But I'm also part of the resistance. I go in when everyone else does and I do what everyone else does. Doesn't mean I have to like it but...well...yeah."

Looking around, the young woman added, "Anyway, we should get going. They're going to, eventually; get wise that we're hiding over here. I'm going to apologize in advance before we get moving, though. Tank changed the program around a bit for me."

"Changed how? It still looks the same to me," Neo pointed out taking stock of their underground surroundings.

The only thing that struck him as odd was Pixie's mode of dress. Sure it fit the whole martial arts theme of the game but it was different from what Trinity-- The only other female he'd ever seen make frequent use of the martial arts programs on the _Nebuchadnezzar_.--had worn the few times they'd trained together.

Pixie was well covered, making her look younger than she was. Not that she didn't to begin with. Neo had been taken aback to learn the girl he always saw in the ship's medical baby was nineteen and not fifteen or sixteen like he'd initially thought.

Wearing her mischievous smile once again and almost bouncing on the balls of the light boots she was wearing, Pixie gave a soft giggle and informed Neo, "You'll see!"


	3. Stronger

AN: Sorry again for the lateness of this chapter. I hope the fact it's on the long side makes up for the fact I am an extremely delinquent author when it comes to posting new chapters for this story. I'll try my best to make sure there's not too long a delay between this and the next chapter. I just hope you're all enjoying this little misadventure so far. I know this story's a bit of stretch but I still hope you're all having fun while on the ride. Please let me know if the puzzles are too confusing or "out there" or if Neo's too out of character (I always have trouble with cannon characters. That's part of the reason Pixie's around.) To anyone who's made this story a favorite or put me on alert, thanks so much. To anyone who's left me a review, you rock like a box of socks. Remember, I'm open to all constructive criticism and to any opinions…good, bad, and indifferent.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Work it, make it, do it, makes us

Harder, better, faster, stronger

(Work it harder, make it better)

N-n-ow that that don't kill me

(Do it faster, makes us stronger)

Can only make me stronger…" (From "Stronger" by Kanye West)

Neo was almost sure the tunnels he and Pixie were wandering through were becoming more and more convoluted the deeper they went. There were twists and turns within the underground labyrinth and the pair kept coming across forks in the road.

The few wrong turns-- Even with Pixie leading the way, they made plenty of wrong turns as the simple tunnels seemed to expand into a huge maze. --they made had led the pair into the waiting hands of groups of training ninjas. Ninjas that were caught off guard and, quickly, dispatched with hands, feet, and one sword.

"Do you always carry a sword?" Neo questioned, as he and his shorter companion jogged away from their latest encounter with their enemies and headed down another twisting, turning length of tunnel.

For a moment, Pixie didn't speak. It almost seemed as if she hadn't heard Neo speaking to her in the first place.

The young woman's brandy brown eyes darted here and there, taking in everything around them in several quick passes. Neo had thought it strange, at first, but he was rapidly starting to get use to it. Each time they chose a new path, took a new fork in the road so to speak, Pixie seemed to make an attempt to memorize just where they were and how they'd gotten there.

Neo wasn't entirely sure what to make of it or of that was what Pixie was actually doing but he figured he shouldn't bother the young woman. Despite the fact she was only nineteen year of age-- Pixie's given Matrix age --making her younger than Neo, she was, technically speaking, older than he was in "Real World" years. After all, she'd been out of the Matrix longer than he had, making her older than he was in a backwards sort of way.

That "said," Neo decided to follow Pixie's lead. After all, there seemed to be a method to her madness, so to speak.

"Just when I'm in these kinds of programs," she answered, after a time. "I'm not good enough to use one in the Matrix yet. I have to use guns like everyone else...even though I don't really like using them."

Neo didn't inquire further and Pixie was glad for that fact. She didn't want to have to explain why she didn't like using firearms. Using firearms, having the power to kill, was just something Pixie still wasn't entirely comfortable with and the young woman was eternally thankful that Tank had given her a weapon that didn't outright kill.

Alright, Pixie was more than willing to admit the small darts from her tranquilizer gun pumped the person so full of sedatives that there was a very good chance they probably weren't going to get up but, to her, it was different from outright, cold blooded murder. There was always a chance that the person could recover from the major dose of sedatives running through their bodies. There was a chance that she hadn't really killed them.

Pixie knew her dislike for killing was silly and counterproductive given her line of work but Pixie was, at heart, a medic. She had been charged with taking care of lives not taking them away. Hence the "non-lethal" weaponry she carried with her in the Matrix.

Since it went along with the game, though, Pixie was without any firearms, non-lethal or otherwise. All she had were her fists and the sword she was carrying at her side. The young woman had actually chosen the sword herself, out of all the weapons that could have been carried into the game.

In relative silence-- just in case there were enemies around to find the pair wandering through the maze-like tunnels --Pixie and Neo made their way down another twisting tunnel. The path kept twisting and turning, Pixie quietly leading and seemingly memorizing the path they were taking and Neo following behind, watching the young girl's back and trying to figure out just what was going on.

"Tank said he changed something in here," he pointed out as the pair reached a door with a strange symbol on it. "Except for the tunnels getting longer, I don't see anything different."

"Other than putting me in this program, that's what he changed," Pixie answered vaguely gesturing at a niche set just near the door.

Shrugging her shoulders, the movement almost completely lost under the complex outfit she was clad in, the young woman, sounding embarrassed, explained, "I don't know if anyone's told you but I like solving puzzles during my 'break' time. It's not exactly training but it's what I like to do. I guess Tank found a way to combine one of my puzzle solving programs with the training program you were using."

Watching Pixie walk around the small space the pair was standing in-- She seemed to be trying to find something either against or in the walls around them --Neo asked, "All puzzles or just some kinds of puzzles?"

"I don't really like puzzles with numbers," Pixie answered, not making eye contact as she spoke to Neo. "But other than that it's all puzzles in general. I don't know why but I've just always liked solving them."

A small grin crossed her face as she seemed to find what she was looking for. Her fiddling with the walls around them seemed to reveal a hidden chamber, just like any good video game, really. Carefully, Pixie reached into the chamber to pull out a baseball sized yellow orb.

Said orb seemed to glow with its own internal power, bathing Pixie's hands in a sickly hue. To Neo, it was a pretty good mock up of any special effect found in any video game in the Matrix. Pixie, though, seemed to be quite pleased with her find, handling the baseball sized orb with the utmost care.

"Found it!" she giggled, not noticing Neo or the baffled expression he was wearing on his face. "I knew it had to be around here someplace."

Neo watched as Pixie placed the glowing orb in the niche near the door he'd discovered etched into the rocky wall. Spidery lines in the rock-- lines Neo had thought to be just cracks in the rock --lit up with a sickly yellow glow that matched the orb Pixie had retrieved from the wall and moved along the rock to the carved door. The door seemed to react, creaking upwards on invisible but old sounding gears and disappearing into the ceiling of the tunnel.

With a rather inarticulate "Whoa," Neo realized just what kind of game this was going to be. The video game, so to speak, they were in wasn't going to follow the standard rules of any of the standard ninja fighting games he'd played during his time in the Matrix.

No, Tank had included puzzles because Pixie liked puzzles. The game was now going to head into role playing game territory because those games were always full of frustrating puzzles.

Neo had played his share of role playing games while in the Matrix-- He distinctly remembered sitting for several hours and abusing his mind, rather than freeing it, as he played _Final Fantasy VII_. --but he wasn't the biggest fan of them. Though he liked the idea of escaping reality, even for a little while, and indulging in the exploration of some created universe, it just wasn't something he could sit and do for hours on end.

There were bigger things, bigger tasks for him to accomplish. Why spend hours parked in front of a television with a Playstation controller exploring some mystic land caring about hit points and ability points when one could search for greater truths? By "searching," Neo meant hacking but that wasn't here nor there at the moment.

Besides, when it came to video games, Neo found it more invigorating to demolish ninjas than to wander around trying to figure out some random puzzles while fighting in a turn based reality. Neo guessed that those kinds of games interested Pixie because her own game seemed to be loosely based on them. He just hoped that her role playing game didn't involve turn based combat. He wasn't sure he could deal with that.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," Pixie warned, breaking Neo out of his reverie and stopping him in his tracks. "I'm not sure what'll happen if you go in there."

"What are you talking about?" Neo broached, curiously watching as Pixie removed a green and a blue orb from the hole she'd discovered and place the orbs in a black pouch he hadn't noticed on her outfit.

"It's not just the ninjas we have to worry about now," the medic-in-training explained as she dusted off the green knee pad covered knees of her body stocking. "These games like this always have traps in them. If we do something wrong, the traps almost always trigger silent alarms and rain ninjas down on us. Sometimes they trap you in an area and the only way to get out is to admit defeat and have Tank pull you out."

Pixie pronouncement sobered Neo up very quickly. From the way the first puzzled was solved-- having to find an orb tucked away in a wall --Neo assumed this was going to be a straight out role playing game. Instead, it appeared to be a strange fusion between Pixie's puzzles and the ninja training program he'd been using prior to Pixie being inserted into the game.

"You don't see any more of these orb things, do you?" Pixie asked, as she, carefully, entered the chamber behind the now absent door and beckoned Neo to follow her in.

It almost looked as if they'd hit a dead end. The room was small and round; the only discernable exit was the entrance they'd use to get in. The only clue, it seemed, they had were two more niches in the walls, on opposite sides of the room.

"Are you looking for another yellow orb?" Neo asked, curious to see how they were going to get out of this new situation.

There appeared to be no other exits but it also seemed like they were on the right track. After all Pixie's entrance into the room didn't trigger any alarms. There were no ninjas attacking them. It was just that they were stuck in a round room.

"I guess," Pixie offered with a lame sort of shrug. "I figure if we take the yellow orb from that holder, the door's going to close and the other person's going to be stuck on that side outside this room.

Wearing a thoughtful look, the young woman continued, "The few times I've done these kinds of programs with someone else, part of the game is not leaving the other person behind. Sort of like in an actual role playing game. Either there's another yellow orb around here or the key's one of the other orbs I picked up. We're missing something…that's the only logical solution."

Though he was mildly confused by the situation, Neo was sure that this was the most he'd ever heard Pixie say to anyone. In his short time on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ Neo only remembered hearing Pixie speak a handful of times. In those few times, her words had been quick, her tone had been soft, and her sentences short but not in a clipped, rude sort of way.

Pixie, in Neo's mind anyway, was one of those eerily quiet people. She didn't come off as being unfriendly, despite the fact she rarely spoke to anyone. The few conversations they'd had-- short ones, though --on the ship attested to that fact. If she was unfriendly, she would have never, jokingly, given him small science lessons and divulged the fact she was a Pod Born to him.

Oddly enough, Pixie didn't seem to really notice she was talking at all. The young woman was more engrossed in walking around the small space, checking the walls for any clues, any hints relating to their next move. The cracked and pitted walls-- even the niches were cracked and crumbling --seemed to offer her no help, though. Pixie put her hands on her small hips, a pout starting to form on her face.

"Doesn't Tank tell you the rules before jacking you in here?" Neo wanted to know, checking for small levers or buttons that might give Pixie another yellow orb to work with but not finding anything to help her.

Pixie shook her head, long ponytail whipping back and forth between her narrow shoulder blades like a tail. Pixie knew the smart thing to do was to tie her hair back and away from her face.

Leaving it off of her neck made good sense because her hair not only presented an easy way for an enemy to get at her-- After all, her hair was quite pull-able at its length --but she knew she could hurt herself with it as well. More than once did Pixie whack herself in the eye with the end of her own braid, leaving her blinded for a few moments. Not a problem in a simulation where things were controlled but a real problem in the Matrix where things weren't.

Most people she knew-- Hawk came to mind as being first and foremost among them. --said the smart thing for her to do was to cut it but Pixie had taken it upon herself to ignore all of them. It was a thick headed thing to do, since some really did mean well, but it was what Pixie decided to do.

Her hair was her hair. It was the only girly thing she was allowed on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ where she acted the part of a warrior and a medic-in-training. Besides, Pixie had seen herself both completely bald and with shorter hair. Without the mop of hair she had, Pixie felt she wasn't herself. There was just something wrong with the image unless the impractically long hair wasn't included. The image of herself just didn't look right to her. It was the hair that made her image in any reflective surface look right to her.

"The rules for these games are kind of the same every time I play them. There's always a method to the mazes and enemies to fight. Making mistakes and rushing headlong into things springs traps and that brings down more enemies," Pixie explained.

A look of realization passed over her elven featured face and she added, "Oh you mean the orbs, right?"

Watching Neo nod, Pixie blushed and stated, "They always follow the same pattern too. The yellow ones only open doors. The blue ones are explosive and the green ones they do a lot of things depending on the situation."

"What do you mean?" the older man asked, watching as Pixie made another pass around the room, this time with her hands on her hips.

"One time, the greens undid all the traps in the room which was fun. Another time, they opened all the doors for a split second. That seemed like a good thing-- I mean it was a free run through the made --but that brought ninjas down on me like flies. I didn't like that part because I was alone. The last time I was in here, I had to collect them all to open the final door right before the boss," she explained, the pout she'd been wearing turning into a pensive sort of look.

The fact she had two orbs and two possible choices for where she could place them was driving Pixie up a wall. Tank and Mouse had yet to create a puzzle she couldn't solve. There was always a solution-- that was the nature of a puzzle, there had to be solution --but finding one took time.

Time Pixie was starting to think she didn't have.

The route the pair had taken had been full of twists and turns but, eventually, Pixie knew the ninjas would find them. The AI in the game wasn't as….stupid…as some of the AI in Matrix video games. The programmed ninjas would, eventually wise up and hunt them down like the enemies they were supposed to be.

Making a stand in a small, round room with no discernable exits was not her idea of a good time. Pixie knew she wasn't as strong nor was she as able as many of the others she worked with when it came to martial arts. She was flexible and fast, made to strike quickly and move out just as quickly. Combined with the intelligence everyone claimed she had-- Pixie still insisted she was just average in that department --she was not the most imposing of opponents.

The young woman knew, logically, that finding a solution to the puzzle at hand was far more important than musing on her fighting skills, or lack thereof. Pixie, with that in mind, turned her attention to the room around her instead of the thoughts inside her own head.

Neo watched, half amazed and half amused, as Pixie circled around the room for the third or fourth time. Her brandy brown eyes still seemed to be searching for some clue to get them out of their situation.

When the walls didn't yield any new clues, Pixie turned her searching eyes to the ceiling and floor. Staring at the floor, Pixie noticed something. Well, part of something anyway. There was an odd looking glyph-- for lack of a better word --half hidden under Neo's boots.

"Neo, could you please move? I think you're standing on our clue on how to get out of here," Pixie requested, her tone more than a little polite.

Given their circumstances, her tone threw Neo for a long moment. It almost-- No, it actually did --sounded like she was asking him for his permission instead of giving him an order.

Hawk, especially, had been keen on ordering Neo around when they worked together. His logic being that he knew better because he'd been out of the Matrix longer. Neo assumed that the same held true for the young woman standing with him. After all, she'd been out of the Matrix and working on the ship longer than he'd been free.

In his mind, Pixie should have been ordering him to move. Instead, she was asking permission with her eyes on the tops of her boots and her hands behind her back as if she was afraid that he might tell her "no" or something to that effect.

If the world around him, the world he was being asked to call home, wasn't so confusing in and of itself, Neo considered asking someone about Pixie. Maybe he could find out just why she was asking polite questions and looking nervous about doing so.

Neo was still trying to deal with the whole idea of the Real World and what Morpheus expected of him so anything about Pixie was going to have to wait. Still, even from his limited experience around her, Neo decided that Pixie was a very strange young girl-- Young woman, really. She was nineteen, after all. --and very different from any person her age he'd "known" in the Matrix.

Neo stepped to the side, looking at where his feet had been in order to see what Pixie decided she was seeing. Much to his surprise-- since the floor looked uniform to him --there was, indeed, a strange looking shape just under where he'd been standing. To him it looked like nothing but a badly drawn triangle but it must have meant something to Pixie because a smile stretched across her elven featured face.

The young woman, fairly bouncing with excitement again, stepped next to Neo and cocked her head to one side. The excitement drained from her face a bit, showing a very thoughtful expression spreading across her features. She was back in her thinking mode, so to speak.

To most normal people, the shape in the ground looked just like a triangle sketched into the dirt. One of the sides of said triangle was a bit thicker than the others but that could have been meaningless. It was entirely possible that whoever drew the shape was just bad at drawing.

"It's a triangle," Neo commented, coking his head to one side just as Pixie had done in the hopes of better understanding what was on the ground. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"It's not a triangle, I think. Not really anyway," Pixie answered, her head still tilted to one side and a thoughtful expression still on her face. "One side is thicker than the other two. I think it's a delta, like the Greek letter."

Someplace in the hazy fog of his high school memories, Neo tried to remember what a delta looked like. He hadn't really paid much attention to much of anything in college so that was no use. It was to his dream-like-- Okay, they were a dream in truth. --high school memories he went. Someplace in those memories, he recalled learning about deltas in some math class….or was it a science class. Actually, it might have been both.

Speaking aloud, Pixie continued, "The letter, itself, has to mean nothing because there's no other letters in the room. That means there are no translations involved and no word games or ciphers to crack. This is something else entirely. But delta doesn't always have to be a letter in the Greek alphabet. It has other meanings. It can mean 'change' like in a scientific or mathematical equation…like delta y over delta x means 'change in y over change in x.' That would make more sense. We're talking about a change here."

Sure she wasn't speaking to him; Neo was convinced that this was the most he'd ever heard Pixie say to anyone during his time in the Real World. It was almost funny to hear her rambling on about something that she was seeing in the ground. If anything, it was more like Pixie was thinking out loud, saying a lot of things just to say them. Well, maybe not just to say them. More like to test out how they sounded out loud. Sometimes the craziest of ideas sounded better out loud than they did in the confines of someone's brain.

As if noticing that Neo was standing next to her for the first time, Pixie shook herself free of her reverie. She gave him an apologetic sort of smile and shrugged her green covered shoulders.

"I could be totally off base here," Pixie pointed out. "Maybe you have an idea. It was rude of me not to ask you if you did. I'm sorry...I got involved in my own head."

Her question, the way she phrased it, confused Neo even more than he was before. The dark haired young woman was now apologizing to him like he was her superior instead of more of a rookie than she was.

The odd thing was Neo was sure she wasn't placating him. She wasn't apologizing because she figured it was just what she had to do. Instead, she seemed to be apologizing because she felt like she'd done something wrong. Pixie was apologizing because she seemed to feel as if she'd actually done something wrong.

From the puzzles to Pixie's behavior, everything was altogether strange about the situation.

Neo had been told by Morpheus that they were at war with malevolent machines bent on destroying the free part of the human race but here he was in a program with a young woman who was timid and quiet. Maybe it was her way of coping with things, Neo wasn't entirely sure.

"You're the expert here. I trust your judgment," he told Pixie, watching as Pixie's face colored a very bright pink.

Biting her lower lip-- a gesture Pixie had been fighting to curtail because it wasn't very "mature" --Pixie glanced upwards. There were several spider lines on the ceiling of the cave. The only ones she cared about, though, were the groups that seemed to bend towards the almost forgotten niches in the walls of the round room they were in.

"It can't be that simple, can it?" Pixie wondered pulling out the two orbs she'd taken from the box. "Delta indicates change."

She showed the two orbs to Neo, wearing a curious, elven grin, and asked, "If delta means change, you think this is what we're changing? Two orbs for a way out of here?'

"What's there to lose?" Neo stated, taking the blue orb out of Pixie's hand and placing it in a niche on the wall just as Pixie did the same with the green.

"If we're wrong," she cautioned as she slipped her orb into its niche. "This is going to bring ninjas down on us like rain."

That gave Neo pause but the pause was only momentary. If there were any ninjas he was sure he and Pixie-- and Pixie's neat little sword. He made a mental note to ask Tank or Morpheus or Trinity about that one. --could take care of them.

Though he'd been tired before, Neo felt energized now. Maybe it was from watching Pixie who, contrary to the sedate face she showed on the ship, was fairly bouncing with energy now that she'd solved her puzzle.

For a moment both Pixie and Neo held their respective breaths. The entire space went still and silent, the two resistance fighters who were there but not really since the space was virtual waited for something to happen. It didn't matter if that something was good or bad now. What mattered was the result of their actions and the decision Pixie had made.

Two things seemed to happen at once.

Whether or not they were related was beyond either two individuals standing in the round room. Actually, the only person who did know was watching the two of them from the screens on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. Coincidently, it was that same person who was in charge of the program they were running through.

Pixie really hoped he didn't do this just because he thought it was funny. Not one prone to fits of random violence, Pixie was almost sure she'd beat Tank within an inch of his life if she found out he'd programmed solutions that triggered traps at the same time. That, in her mind, just wasn't fair.

The spider lines in the walls-- the lines had been all but invisible in the walls up until that moment --filled with vivid green and blue light. Like mercury through an old style thermometer, the colored lights filled up the cracks and headed towards the ceiling of the room.

Around they wormed, creating the image of another delta in the ceiling. A delta that flashed for a moment before receding into the ceiling like a flap, exposing a triangle shaped hole in the ceiling.

"Delta means change, huh?" Neo commented, noticing that, despite having a way out of the round room there was no way to get up to the newly created exit.

He was tall enough that he could, probably, reach if he stood on his toes. Pixie, though, might have an issue. She was shorter than Neo by more than one head.

"I guess so," Pixie commented, staring up at the hole, a plan already forming in her mind about how best to get into said space.

Her musings were cut short, however when ninjas starting raining down through the hole. The first few who fell through looked a bit surprised that they'd fallen-- Maybe they'd been standing near the delta when it disappeared and had fallen into the newly created space in the ground. --but, once they spotted Pixie and Neo, their surprise turned to anger.

"Oh man," Pixie groaned, pulling sword from its sheath and brandishing the thin bladed weapon at the ninjas. "This is the first time this has happened...Wasn't expecting this."

Neo almost wanted to laugh but a few more ninjas poured down the hole they'd created in the ceiling. He could laugh later. There was fighting to be done now.


	4. The Little Things

AN: Happy Belated Halloween! I didn't do anything special for Halloween…no parties or anything like that. Instead I handed out candy in my pajamas to the kids who came trick or treating. At least my costume was easy to explain! Actually, I was the Devil's Kitten for Halloween. My Girl Scout troop had a part on the 24th and that was when I dressed up. See, I'm the leader for the little kids so it's kind of expected for me to wear a costume. Not that I mind. After twenty-two years of dance costumes--- and some incredibly awful ---I don't mind wearing costumes at all. I guess you could say I'm immune to it now. Anywho, enough about spooks and costumes! Thank you to everyone still reading this! Please let me know what you think of this little story. I don't mind any opinion, good, bad, or indifferent. Just let me know how you think I'm doing. I always enjoy the input!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Have you heard the news?  
Bad things come in twos  
But I never knew 'bout the little things  
Every single day  
things get in my way  
someone has to pay for the little things…" (From "The Little Things" by Danny Elfman)

Only a handful of ninjas came raining down on Pixie and Neo. All seemed surprised or as surprised as digital characters could be when they toppled through the triangle shaped hole and onto a waiting Pixie and Neo. In the small room--- The door the pair had entered through had closed when Pixie opened the hatch above them. ---it was hard to fight. Pixie couldn't use her sword for fear of harming her ally and both had to limit their fighting moves in the tiny space.

The young woman figured that was part of the challenge, part of the game she was now playing. She had to figure out how to work with a partner and fight in a confined space. It was a useful skill considering one never knew how big a space they had to fight in Pixie figured. Everything in these games---including her seemingly inane puzzles ---had a purpose. They were all meant to train something, be it mind, body, or both.

Still, Pixie couldn't help but be glad the number of ninjas was few. The young woman was looking for puzzles, not a giant brawl-for-all with ninjas and their weapons. She knew the fighting was for Neo's benefit--- helped his training and all that ---but she enjoyed her puzzles more than anything else.

The little puzzle, the hidden delta she was meant to find was just the start of it, Pixie knew. The young woman was convinced that Tank and Mouse were out to create a puzzle she couldn't find a solution to. They'd know the solution, of course, since they were the ones who created it, but it would be a puzzle so complicated that Pixie would never find it.

They hadn't found one that stumped her yet, though, no matter how hard they tried.

"Here's one more," Neo stated, tossing another yellow orb to Pixie who stowed said orb in her pouch. "Why is it the enemies always carry items that we need but they have no use for?"

Once the ninjas had been dispatched, sent to their virtual graves as it was, and the bodies checked for anything that might be of use later, Pixie and Neo climbed up through the delta shaped hole.

Neo had offered Pixie a boost, threading his hands together and lowering them, figuring that she'd be too short to get to the lip of the hole herself. Pixie gave him a tiny smile of thanks and shook her head. Coiling up like a cat about to pounce, Pixie jumped and caught the lip of the hole easily.

Swinging herself upward--- flipping herself over because she enjoyed being upside of her own power ---Pixie gave the room a good once over just to make sure it was empty before laying on her stomach and calling, "Need a hand?"

The young woman was sort of glad Neo was both tall enough to pull himself towards the lip of the delta shaped hole but strong enough to swing himself into the next room. False reality or not Pixie wasn't entirely sure she could have helped Neo up. She wasn't the strongest of individuals on the ship and she could only suspend disbelief about her own strength in any program or the Matrix for so long.

That was one of the many things Pixie knew she had to work on. It wasn't only Neo who had to work on his martial arts skills, the young woman knew. She had to work on them too. Fighting hand to hand, or hand to weapon, was never one of her strong points.

"Where to now, Pixie?" Neo wanted to know, noticing that they were closer to the surface now than they had been before.

The pair found themselves standing in a hallway of sorts. The space was narrow, Neo and Pixie barely able to walk side-by-side but was several feet long. The hallway was devoid of crates, much to Pixie's dismay, and ninjas--- Though Neo figured most of the ninjas had come down after him and Pixie which explained their absence from the hallway. ---and, strangely enough, with an open door at the end. The pair, Pixie leading and fairly bouncing along ahead of him, could both see into the next, much larger room.

"That's weird," Neo commented, speaking just low enough so that Pixie could hear him.

The same thoughts crossed Pixie's mind as she took in the sight before her. This was far too simple. There was no one stopping them, nothing to block their path.

"Be on your guard," she warned, knowing just how paranoid she sounded but not really caring. "This isn't normally the way things go. I've yet to see an open door without something blocking it."

There was a very distinct possibility that this open doorway, the lack of a fight before entering the next area was a programmed reprieve of some sort. A break because there was something worse to come. A mental cool down of sorts before she had to stretch her mind again. That also made a strange sort of sense to the young woman.

"I guess we head down the hall," she offered, answering Neo's initial question and adding a lame sort of shrug, "But remember to keep your guard up. Whoever programmed this game is having fun with us. I've never had ninjas fall on me at the same time a door opens. Ninjas never have anything to do with a puzzle being solved correctly. They're usually the punishment; I guess you could say, when something's solved incorrectly."

"Tank didn't program this by himself?" Neo asked as he and Pixie made slow and very careful progress down the hallway.

The young woman shook her head, braid whipping back and forth like a tail from the back of her head, "Tank's probably the one Operating because you're in here but this little mess could have easily been written by Mouse. Hawk too but then I don't think you'd be in here with me. That's now how his programs work."

"Who'd I be in here with, then?" Neo wanted to know, curiously and trying to keep the usually silent Pixie speaking.

Pixie hadn't meant to be rude and not spoken but her attention had been captivated by the room that spread out before them. She was trying to take in everything at once, trying to get the gist of what they might, possibly have to do in this space.

The room was wide and square shaped--- all of the sides were of the same length and that seemed purposeful to Neo ---and included a second square shaped opening in the floor. The floor, except for the empty depression in its center, was made of translucent tiles--- strange given the circumstances but, then, whoever was out there operating was melding two programs together so some strangeness might have been acceptable ---save for a stone border around the outskirts and the opening in the floor. Those were made of crumbling stone just like the rest of the program.

On the farthest end of the room, opposite the doorway Pixie and Neo were standing in, was what looked to be a very fancy, very expensive flat screen monitor. It was very unlike the screens Pixie was use to seeing on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. Those were cobbled together from what parts the human race could salvage and were careworn with time and use. They weren't…bad…screens, she knew, since they served their purpose well. They were just different from the one her eyes flew to.

It really wasn't so much the screen that had caught Pixie's attention. It was what was on the screen that interested her far more than anything else. A set of shapes, each a different color and form, was flickering on the screen amid a sea of static. Pixie immediately recognized it as a pattern of some kind but the pattern, at the moment, meant nothing to the young woman. It was just a bunch of shapes on a screen and being worked out in her head.

"What are we supposed to do in here, Pixie?" Neo broached, coming up behind the young woman and looking over her shoulder.

"Pix," the young woman, quietly, corrected Neo. "Everyone calls me 'Pix.' I guess you could say it's my nickname."

The only person, technically speaking, to use her given name was Morpheus. To everyone else on the ship and back home she was just "Pix." Her name was short as it was but, for some reason, it had been shortened ever further.

She'd loathed and detested any changed to her hacker name while in the Matrix. She use to grimace whenever Hawk decided to call her "Pixie Sticks." No matter how many times she told him to stop, Hawk continued his butchering of her name.

It came as a huge surprise, then, when Pixie found herself perfectly alright with Wheeler, back when the former pitcher was just a name in a chat room, shortening her name just to "Pix." He'd been the one who started using the nickname and everyone else picked up on it. It was still the only nickname that Pixie would accept though, the only variation on her name she was alright with. Hawk calling her "Pixie Sticks" still annoyed her to no bitter end.

Neo nodded his understanding, making a mental note to remember what she'd told him, and followed Pixie onto the floor in the next room.

The floor lit up wherever either Neo or Pixie stepped on it, which caught Pixie's eyes. It wasn't single tiles that lit up as their respective booted feet hit the ground, much to Pixie's amazement and amusement. The floor lit up with shapes that mimicked the shapes on the screen they were walking towards.

Cataloging what shapes she had to choose from- Right L, Left L, Upside Down L, Square, Rectangle, and Single Square- Pixie started to see where this puzzle was going. The pattern on the screen and the shapes on the floor were starting to get the gears in her brain working at double speed.

"What's the next step?" she mumbled, thinking out loud again and noticing that every few steps would clear all of the shapes on the floor. "There's a reason the floor clears. How does this all go together? It can't be that simple, can it?"

Neo had taken notice of the shapes as they appeared on the ground below them--- like lights that could be tapped to be turned on and off ---but wasn't sure what Pixie was mumbling about. Something was going on behind her brandy brown eyes but Neo didn't know what. All he was able to guess was that she was dancing a fine line between bouncing from excitement and going into deep thought.

"What can't be that simple?" Neo asked, making Pixie stumble as he knocked her out of her self-imposed reverie.

"This puzzle," Pixie answered, her eyes on the squares around her as she lit them up with a few steps and made them go dark with a single step. "It just can't be as simple as us having to mimic that image on the screen. There's got to be a catch in there somewhere. There's always a catch."

Heading for the screen, unwittingly stepping on a block that turned the entire floor blank again, Pixie turned her attention to flickering image before her. Even upon closer inspection, it seemed to be a random assortment of the shapes she and Neo had unwittingly discovered as they walked the length of the room. There were places where the shapes interlocked with each other but, by the same token, there were shapes that stood alone, away from the others, on the image on the screen.

Looking from the floor to the screen and back again, Neo decided that Pixie was telling the truth. The shapes on the screen matched the shapes that he and Pixie had created while walking across the floor. They hadn't solved the puzzle as they marched across the room, since no new doors had opened, but they'd found part of the key they needed to solve the puzzle.

"So we keep stepping on blocks until we come up with the pattern on the screen?" Neo suggested.

For a quick moment, Neo thought Pixie was going to laugh at his suggestion. Her expression had gone totally blank as she stared from the screen to the floor and back again. Whatever idea she had, Neo decided, it was probably a whole lot better than his.

"I think that's the best thing we can do right now," Pixie commented, after checking the screen and the room once again. "I think we're going to have to be very organized about it, though. It wouldn't be good to just run around the room randomly. It would be hard to see patterns that way."

Neo nodded his head, agreeing with Pixie on that point. Both he and Pixie had watched as their random steps as they made their way across the floor caused the shapes to appear and disappear. Walking around as they had been wasn't going to show them anything. There had to be a method to their madness, so to speak, as they tried to recreate the pattern on the screen.

What felt like ages later to the young woman, Pixie was beginning to regret suggesting the trial and error approach as the best way to solve their latest problem. Both she and Neo, taking turns and working from the picture on the monitor, had stepped their way around the room trying to get the shapes to light up in such a way that they matched the image on the screen.

Where the picture had six shapes all lit up and glowing in a pretty rainbow of colors, the most the pair could muster was five before someone took a misstep and the floor went back to its initial blank state.

The young woman sighed, running a hand over her braid and fiddling with the end of it for a moment before looking at the room again. Her mind was busy trying to solve the puzzle, while Neo stood in near the center of the room and watched her. To Neo, who didn't know Pixie as well as some of the others on the ship, he was finding that the dark haired young woman was a far different person in this program than she was on the ship. On the craft she was this shy and quiet bit of a person. Now she was running the extremes from thoughtful to bouncing with excitement and back again. What surprised him most, though, was the fact she was talking. He'd now decided this was the most he'd ever heard Pixie speak during his short time in the Real World.

Pixie was far removed from Neo's musings. She was focused on the puzzle before them and how it was always in the same spot---- a square tucked just under the arm of a normal looking L---that things went wrong. She wasn't entirely sure how things always managed to go wrong but things always seemed to.

Every time it came to stepping on that one square, the entire floor would go blank as if whoever was walking the board had taken a misstep. Both Pixie and Neo knew it was the right piece--- it showed it on the screen they were both going by ---but, for some strange reason, it turned the floor off which forced them to start from square one all over again.

The young woman sat herself on the floor, Indian style, resting her chin in the cupped palms of her hands. Her pale face was a mask of concentration as she tried to figure out just what they were doing wrong.

Everything else was going well except for one small piece of the puzzle. If that piece could be ignored or removed somehow--- not likely ---they would have been on their way ages ago.

"Isn't that always the case," she mumbled, her mind running through all the puzzles she'd been presented with during her time on the ship as it tried to figure out the new puzzle it was being given.

The puzzles had been many but her mind settled, specifically, on the puzzles that always seemed to have one piece that made it next to impossible to solve it. All because the one piece didn't want to play nicely, if she wanted to give said piece human qualities.

For whatever reason there way, the piece in question and the space it was supposed to occupy never seemed to align properly. Hypothetically, one could pound the piece into place but that, more often than not, didn't work. All the pounding did was make a mess out of the surrounding pieces and that never solved anything.

If anything, pounding a piece into place was the polar opposite of getting a solution. Even Pixie, with her sometimes fractured logic, knew that much.

Still the piece and the space had to fit together. There was no other way to complete the puzzle but to make them fit together. It always just took some careful thought and, often, looking at things from a new angle.

Pixie's eyes were only for the floor, watching Neo try to complete the sequence as she tried to figure out just what was going wrong from underneath the screen. Her attention, since her eyes were down towards the ground anyway, was drawn to Neo's feet. His steps were careful and measured, lest he activate blocks that had nothing to do with their solution and be forced to start trying to solve their puzzle all over again. The motions were ones each of them had repeated several times over during their attempt to solve the latest challenge the program threw at time.

Just as before, when she'd done her last walk through of the light up floor, once he reached the final shape, the entire floor went black.

The shape was tucked into the crook of an L and next to the pit in the center of the room. That made the small square was in an awkward shape to get to. One wrong step in either direction and they risked either falling into the empty pit in the center of the room or planting their foot in the wrong space and having to start all over again.

Neither Neo nor Pixie had paid any mind on how to get to the small square. Since it was a tiny shape compared to the rest, they just sort of stepped out onto it and hoped for the best. Needless to say the best wasn't good enough and the puzzle remained unsolved.

Watching Neo's feet and sensing his growing frustration as the puzzle remained unsolved, Pixie got an idea. All of their steps were carefully measured, stepping on only one square that made up each shape.

It was the only square in each that seemed activate the shapes on the ground. Only one square that, probably, held the trigger that caused the shape to light up on the ground. Stepping anywhere else caused the entire floor to go blank. Pixie figured it was the only good thing they'd figured out during their little game of "trial and error."

"Neo," the young woman called just as he was about to make another round through the room to start the puzzle all over again. "Wait a second! I think I have an idea on we can get out of this."

The young woman, almost literally, bounced to her feet and trotted over to where Neo stood just on the ledge of stones leading out onto the floor. Neo still was entirely sure what to make of the young woman he was working with.

Like the contrasting colors she was wearing--- an inky black and a bright green ---Pixie seemed to be a study in contrasts. She seemed to be able to bounce between quietly thoughtful and serious to happy and excited to vicious and fierce with just a thought. It made him wonder just what kind of person Pixie had been before she was freed, if she was able to easily bounce between such varying emotions.

"What's your idea?" he prompted, since Pixie had stopped speaking. "You think you found a solution?"

"Maybe we're missing the point. We found the shapes we're supposed to be stepping on, but it still seems like we're still doing something wrong," Pixie pointed out. "Maybe we've been looking the whole thing from the wrong point of view. We've taken the shapes clockwise and counterclockwise around this square, starting from the top and we've always saved that shape for last because it's just in an odd place. Maybe we should start from there and work backwards."

With a lame sort of shrug, she added, "It's worth a shot I guess. I don't really know if it's going to work but it beats doing the same thing over and over again."

The comment was self-deprecating and Pixie knew it. She also knew that such comments drove a couple of her friends--- Who might or might have been back in Zion depending on their own ships ---out of their minds. More than half of said friends insisted she was probably the brightest person in all of Zion. They'd cite her grades in the Academy, her faculty with puzzles and mind games, and, of course, the commission she'd gotten as proof of her intelligence.

Pixie--- in what Aisling called "typical Pixie fashion" ---would demure, blush and tell them they were all crazy. They couldn't possibly know that she was the smartest person in all of Zion because they didn't know everyone in Zion. If they knew everyone in Zion and had enough proof to back up then claims, then she might accept them. Until then, she was just another denizen in an underground city. Except she just happened to like puzzles more than others.

"You were right the last time," Neo said, encouragingly. "You're probably right this time too."

Starting with the strange square space, with Pixie guiding him off the image from the screen, Neo made his way around the room once again. How Pixie remembered where he was supposed to step and what block triggered what shape was beyond him. This kid--- Young woman, he reminded himself. She was nineteen years old. ---had to either be using the Construct to enhance her memory or she was just exceedingly smart. Neo wasn't sure which at the moment.

Just as stepped on the final shape--- A normal, run of the mill "L" ---a chime of sorts sounded. The sounded was followed by the grinding of rusty gears as they raised a pedestal from the center of the room. It filed the empty space and held as if waiting for the two occupants to get on.

The platform didn't have to wait all that long for that to happen. No sooner had it appeared in the room, than the pair ran or, in Pixie's case, fairly bounded over to the platform and stood on it as it rose to the next level.


	5. Carmina Burana

AN: Hiya everyone! I hope everyone's enjoying the fall! It's been nasty, grey, cold, and rainy here in the Big (Soggy) Apple. Not exactly a wonderful fall to say the least! Then again, I just don't really like the cold. That's just me though. Either way, I hope everyone's enjoying doing whatever it is they're doing…be it school, work, or other stuff! I'm still trying to find a job. Bit of a pain in the rear end that is. Anywho, thanks to everyone out there reading this pseudo-story. I really do appreciate you taking your time out to read my little ramblings. Please, leave a review (interesting new button too)…good, bad, or indifferent. Just let me know what you're thinking!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Sors salutis  
et virtutis  
michi nunc contraria,  
est affectus  
et defectus  
semper in angaria." (From "Carmina Burana [O Fortuna]" by Paul Orff)

The ride on the platform the pair had activated was a short one. Pixie decided that was probably a good thing. The gears that were raising the pedestal sounded so old that the young woman was starting to fear they were going to stall and she and Neo were going to have to figure out some other way out of the hole they were in. As far as she'd see, the walls were smooth. There were no hand grips or holes of any kind that would allow someone purchase to climb up.

Logically, in her head, she knew this whole situation was false. Every bit of her sensory input was being fed into her through the back of her head. Just as things had been for the first fifteen years of her life.

The only difference between her situation now and the one from her previous life was that this situation wasn't malicious or wicked or even the least bit subversive. Nothing was telling her the space around her was real and this space was her home or something like her home anyway.

All the false input she was receiving now was training her to fight against the constructed reality she use to call home. All the false input she was receiving was teaching her that the Matrix could tell her whatever it wanted to tell her but Pixie had realized that it was one large and elaborate lie. The young woman knew enough that she could circumvent the rules in the false reality and do things that others were unable to do.

That said, if the platform got stuck, Pixie figured she might be able to jump it from the platform to the next landing if it was in sight. If he was able to free his mind enough, Pixie decided Neo might just be able to do the same.

He probably could do it too considering that he did very nearly beat Morpheus in the sparring program on his first day of training. Pixie recalled making a total fool of herself the first time she'd sparred the ship's captain. The young woman had been able to drag the fight on longer than the two boys she'd been with but she still lost, despite figuring out what she thought was a clue in the spar.

Pixie had come closer now--- She'd been with the crew about a year ---but she still hadn't managed to beat the Morpheus or any other member of the ship's crew. Her fellow rookies, with the exception of Neo, were fair game for her most of the time. This fact was much to Hawk's chagrin as he felt he was undefeatable, especially at the hands of a so-called "little girl."

The gears ground to halt, filling in the floor of another square shaped room. The room was tiny, more a small chamber with a door than anything else. The door was shut, a single niche standing out on the wall next to it.

"Yellow orb," Neo stated, making Pixie jump. "They're the ones that open the doors right?"

The medic in training nodded her head and pulled a yellow orb--- its wan light casting a sickly glow on Pixie's hands ---from the pouch she'd been carrying along with her. She slipped orb into the niche in the wall, causing the door to slide into the wall, revealing a long narrow hallway.

At the end of said hallway was another door. This door was set at its center with some sort of metal dial.

"No ninjas," Pixie commented, peering into the hallway with careful, trained eyes. "That's odd. It kind of makes me wonder where they're hiding themselves."

Shrugging, Pixie beckoned Neo to follow her down the narrow hallway. Neo, deciding to take the initiative, stood behind the young woman trying to watch her back and everything ahead of them. Since Pixie was short--- shorter than he was anyway ---it was easy to see the room over her shoulders.

"You're right handed, aren't you?" Neo questioned from behind her, trying to get Pixie talking again. "But why are you carrying your sword on your left hip?"

"Cross draw," Pixie answered. "I pull the sword out of my belt with my right hand and it goes across my body. That way I can use it as a strike or a block, depending on the conditions. Fighting smart is my way, I guess, of evening the odds in the Matrix since I'm not as strong as the others, no matter how much I free my mind."

"You're fast, though, and flexible," Neo pointed out. "Were you a gymnast or something in the Matrix?"

"I was an 'or something' more than a gymnast," Pixie answered, reaching the door before Neo and frowning when she saw what was set in the rocky face.

Looking entirely incongruous with its surroundings, a large silvery circle was set into the rock's face. The large circle was subdivided into several smaller circles, concentric rings that surrounded a large, red button in its center.

Each ring bore a different symbol on it--- Symbols that were reminiscent of the symbols that made up the Matrix code ---five times around it. Each line of symbols--- and one large blank space that ran down all six circles ---was separated into six sections by furrows in the circle.

At its center was a large red button and six diodes, currently dark, were set above the door.

Neo almost asked her what sort of "or something" was she in the Matrix but he thought better of it. He didn't want to interrupt Pixie as she tried to figure out what they were both staring at. Plus, though he wasn't aces at reading body language, Neo almost swore he saw Pixie stiffen when he asked her what she'd been during her Matrix days.

"Now I know it's Tank that's messing with us," Pixie commented, speaking to herself though Neo heard her mumbled words. "He's the only I know who likes to program these things."

To him, it seemed that Pixie knew exactly what she was looking at and what she was being asked to do. Neo gave the puzzle another look, trying to figure out just what it was before Pixie had to tell him. He understood that puzzle solving was her specialty but he wanted to see if he could figure out what they were looking at too. Instead of leaving it to a nineteen year old dressed like a ninja.

"You have to crack the code, right?" Neo broached, recognizing the type of puzzle Pixie was frowning at. "Using the wheels to set up the code."

"Right in one,' Pixie confirmed, though she sounded far from pleased about that fact. "You have to find the right combination of symbols that break the code but Tank loves to thrown in a catch. See, he's programmed it so that you only have a set number of tries to crack the code. If you don't crack it by then, the code changes and you're back to square one."

Pointing to the six diodes above the door, Pixie continued, "Those are the only clues you get. They stay dead like that and that means that you have nothing in the right place. If they turn yellow, that means you found the right symbol but it's in the wrong place. Green means that you have the right symbol in the right place."

"That doesn't sound too hard," Neo pointed out, wondering just why Pixie seemed so upset about the puzzle being presented to them.

The young woman shook her head and countered, "The lights use to coordinate nicely with the wheels. The first light meant the outmost wheel, second light meant the second wheel, and so on but Tank changed that once he thought the program got to easy. The lights light up, sure, but they don't correlate with anything. They just let you know that something's possibly or actually right. It's up to you to figure out where that right something is or, at least, where it could be."

Hearing her explanation, Neo understood why she'd been frowning at the offending wheels set in the wall. They'd have hints to figure out a solution to this puzzle, sure, but they were only the barest of hints. There'd be no big clues to help them this time.

Pixie put her hands on the first wheel--- noticing that a very large number fourteen had lit itself in the red space in the center of the circles as soon as she touched the outermost circle ---and sighed. These sorts of puzzles ranked up next to puzzles involving numbers when it came to the types of puzzles she didn't like.

There was too much trial and error involved in even getting one symbol right, more trial and error involved than in the previous puzzle she and Neo solved. If you took too long, you whittled down the few chances you got into nothing and that made solving the whole thing difficult. It was hard to guess six other symbols on only one or two chances.

That was, really, the main difference between the puzzle she and Neo had just solved and the one she was being asked to solve now. The previous puzzle put no time constraints on their trial and error. They had as many chances as they liked and weren't punished for their mistakes.

Now they had only a set number of chances before the puzzle changed. It was a vast difference and required a totally different mindset. At least in Pixie's opinion, anyway.

She was about to start using her fourteen chances when a small sound caught her slightly pointed ears. When on the ship, she wasn't exactly the most observant when it came to sounds--- Save the ones the human body made when it was sick or otherwise hurt ---but in the Construct and the Matrix, Pixie was convinced that she could hear a pin dropping.

Whenever she went into the Matrix, as opposed to her being on the ship with the others, all of her senses were on high alert. The medic-in-training was well aware of the fact it boiled down to her own nerves activating her adrenal glands, giving her a "rush" and turning on her "fight or flight" response.

It was all basic and very animalistic--- After all the response that gave her a rush had been around since before humans even thought of creating the artificial intelligence that would grow into the Matrix ---but it served its purpose. Made her reaction times faster and her senses more acute. Definitely a good thing in a world that was unkind to freed minds like hers and, when combined with her training, a threat in its own way.

"Neo," she whispered, "do you hear that?"

Neo, who had been standing behind Pixie, watching her over her shoulder, prepared to help the younger--- but obviously more experienced in the ways of the Matrix ---female with whatever she needed. If she needed anything anyway.

So far, Pixie had been doing all of the puzzle solving in the game. She'd solved the first two puzzles with only a little fuss. Still, Neo figured there was something he could do to help. Maybe make a suggestion or something that would help with the giant metal circle in front of her.

The immediate space around them was eerily quiet but there was a definite sound of muted, muffled conversation between people filtering in from somewhere. It wasn't their conversation, obviously, since they weren't talking but someone was out there and that someone was talking. The individuals--- two, at least ---were out there talking, completely unaware of the fact their conversation was being heard by others who really shouldn't have been there in the first place.

"Someone's out there," Neo replied, answering Pixie's questions in a hushed voice.

The young woman turned from her metal wheels and peered down the length of the narrow hallway they stood in. Another frown creased her face as she realized that the narrow space was not the ideal place to fight in. It was far too easy to get backed into a wall and find that one had no place to go. Fighting out of corners and away from walls was hard work and wasn't always successful, Pixie had learned that fact the hard way.

Though they both heard the voices, there was no one coming up the hallway they'd used to enter the room. Pixie couldn't see any ninjas heading towards them even as she unnecessarily squinted her eyes in an effort to make her vision better.

The squinting was a formality, a reflex that she figured everyone from the Matrix had when they tried to see better. Since her freeing, Pixie's vision--- once bad enough to warrant her wearing thick, coke bottle glasses ---had improved drastically thanks mostly to her rebuilding. It could be tricked by things, just like anyone else's vision, but as far as she could see, there was nothing coming down the hallway towards her and Neo.

Still, the conversation had to be coming from someplace in the space. It couldn't have just been a product of the game they were playing.

Though for all intents and purposes, it was a game, the programs created for use in the Construct--- except for some the more...oddball...ones Pixie knew Mouse had created for his and Hawk's enjoyment ---were supposed to mimic things in the Matrix. Voices belonged to virtual people, just like each of the characters in the program she and Neo were in had their own...unique...fighting style.

True, there were no underground ninja lairs that Pixie knew about but the idea was the same. This virtual reality was supposed to simulate the virtual world that was home to much of the human race. It was meant to mimic what was reality to most people…just not to them.

Moving away from the silver circles she was supposed to be solving, almost glad there was not distance between her and the puzzle, Pixie whispered, "There has to be another way of getting in here other than the way we came in. Either that or there are vents and that's where the voices are coming through."

Looking around the room once more, Pixie was absolutely sure of the fact there were no air vents in the space around them. The young woman hadn't seen any when they entered the room much to her chagrin. She'd threaded herself through air vents more than once--- Her small size and narrow build made it easy for her to use vent systems as a quick and dirty way to get away from battles she knew she couldn't win. ---and, at this point, she would have rather faced ninjas than Tank's little code breaker puzzle.

As for Neo, the young woman could only hope he fit in the vents. It was a shame there weren't any so she could test that theory out.

Pixie was the biggest fan of puzzles anyone on the ship could ever remember meeting. That was something everyone on _Nebuchadnezzar _knew and took advantage of to varying degrees. More than once she'd been given puzzles that her fellow crewmates had deemed "unsolvable" or "impossible" for whatever reason and asked to find the solution. She knew it was just a challenge, a way to test her, but Pixie couldn't help herself. It wasn't that she was showing off when she returned with a solution. It was more something she enjoyed doing.

The young woman, for her part, wasn't entirely sure how come she had such faculty for solving puzzles. All she knew was that she did but it didn't work the same way for each puzzle she was presented with. Her quirky little skill wasn't consistent in that respect. For some puzzles, she just had to look at it for a while and the answer sort of came to her when she cleared her mind and focused only on the puzzle in front of her. Other puzzles were more time consuming. They required hours, or days of study and work before she could give any kind of answer for them.

How the answers came was also something Pixie didn't understand well. They always seemed to just come to her. It was as if the puzzle finally decided to speak to her in some way and reveal its answers to her.

Tank's code breaker puzzles, however, were not among her favorites to solve especially in her programs. There were so many constraints placed on the puzzle--- time limits, amounts of guesses, threat of ninjas or whatever the villain of choice was ---that she didn't have any time to actually enjoy what she was doing. Pixie was well aware of the fact this virtual place her mind was sure she was standing in was supposed to help her train for any situation she might encounter but, still, five minutes alone with a puzzle wasn't going to kill anyone. After all, there were times when solving puzzles helped her to relax, as strange as that sounded.

There was little time to dwell on how much she disliked the puzzle that had been presented to her, thought. There were the strange, bodiless voices to contend with and a maze to get through.

That and the boss at the end of the maze, of course. Every good maze had to have a boss at the end just to make things that much more interesting.

"Neo," Pixie mumbled, her voice softer than it normally was on the ship so no passers-by might hear their conversation. "Would it be alright if you watched our communal backs? Maybe I'll get lucky and solve this thing right away and we won't have to deal with whoever owns those voices."

Once again, Neo found himself thrown by the fact Pixie was asking instead of ordering him to do something. The young woman was treating him as her equal instead of someone who was using the program to learn. More than that, she trusted him to watch both their backs. Though they couldn't be killed in the program--- Tank said he'd pull anyone out if they wound up in large amounts of trouble. ---they could be seriously hurt.

He'd been told--- by either Morpheus or Trinity. Neo really couldn't remember at the moment. ---that Pixie, along with fellow rookies Hawk and Mouse, had been on the ship for about a year. That was one year more than he had even in the Real World he now called home. For all intents and purposes, the young woman standing before him could be considered an expert while he was just a novice. Despite that fact, Pixie was politely requesting for him to do things.

It just caught Neo off guard. It was very strange to him though Pixie seemed to be fine with it.

"Alright," he answered. "Do you think you can solve that thing before we're found out?"

Pixie, who had her back turned to Neo and her attention on the silvery wheels before her, frowned. She wasn't entirely sure how to answer Neo's inquiry. At least, answer it in a way that wasn't going to make him distrust her and her abilities, meager as she felt they were.

Sighing, half because of the predicament they were in and half because she just didn't like the puzzle she was being asked to solve, Pixie admitted, "I don't know. I've always had trouble with these kinds of puzzles. It's more of that guess and check kind of work. You have to hope to get a good result on your first few tries and not waste too many turns trying to figure this thing out."

The answer was little comfort to either of them but it was the truth and Pixie always assumed that the truth was infinitely better than any lie, no matter how creative. Lies might have been nice, comforting almost, but they weren't the truth. Even at its harshest, Pixie liked the truth best. At least, that was her estimation.

Pixie knew she could be horribly wrong in that respect. After all, the Matrix was full of people who preferred the lie to the truth. Telling them their reality was just a dream world created by machines would probably just freak them out. Showing them the truth, well, the psychiatrists in Zion would be more than a little busy trying to sort that problem out.

"Then you better get cracking," Neo said, though his words were unnecessary.

Pixie had already gotten started on her code breaking. Her thin fingered hands--- Hands, her medical instructors were quick to point out that would be better suited for surgery rather than general practice or as a ship board medic ---were already busy spinning the wheels while her brandy brown eyes flicked from the symbols before her to the lights above the wheel, watching with intent as she tried to get the right combination.

Though he was quite new in the Real World, Neo understood why Pixie asked him to watch both their backs. She was so intent in breaking the code that she was oblivious to everything else around her. The room could have filled with ninjas and she wouldn't have known it until they were right on top of her. Everything else, as far as she was concerned could have vanished. Pixie was in a world of her own, one based on concentration and intuition as she tried to discern a solution before her turns ran out.

Coming from a world where most average nineteen year olds could barely stand paying attention in school and bounced from place to place as if they hadn't a care in the world, Neo found it was odd to see a nineteen year old able to focus all of her attention on one task. It was a feat he knew very few adults could even hope to pull off.

Maybe it wasn't so much that what Pixie seemed capable of doing was odd. It was just…strange…and very unlike what he expected from someone her age. Either way, Neo figured it was best to watch her back while she worked. She was doing her job to the fullest extent of her abilities--- At least, Neo figured she was anyway. He was no expert. ---so he might as well do his.

AN: The song lyrics are in Latin this time. Here's the translation  
"Fate is against me  
in health  
and virtue,  
driven on  
and weighted down,  
always enslaved."


	6. Die Another Day

AN: Heya everyone! Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and are getting all geared up for all the winter holidays. Me? I belong to a family that does their Christmas shopping in the week leading up to Christmas. Yes, we're those crazy people in the mall on Dec. 24th trying to find gifts. I usually try to get my gifts together before then. See, I like making Christmas gifts instead of buying them. It never turns out well but I still do it. My family's more into store bought gifts than the kind you make. Anyway, I hope everyone's enjoying this story….if anyone's reading it. If you are, thank you very much for taking time out to read my little story. Please remember, reviews are always welcomed…especially with that fancy new review button to use!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"I think I'll find another way  
There's so much more to know  
I guess I'll die another day  
It's not my time to go…" (From "Die Another Day" by Madonna)

Just staring at the wheel before her was frustrating Pixie. The puzzle seemed to be mocking her and the only way for her to return the favor was to solve it but that didn't seem like it was going to happen. Not any time soon anyway. Tank had really done some work this time, making the puzzle harder to solve than any code breaker type puzzle she'd been faced with before.

It probably didn't help the situation any that her attention was split. Though Pixie was known for, among other things, her ability to focus on any task set before her, she found her attention split between the puzzle she was trying to solve and the voices she continued to hear. Not being able to figure out where the voices were coming from

The voices, though, decided to get louder, the conversation becoming more and more distinct at time passed. At first, Pixie had dismissed the voices but now she was sure they were getting closer even though she still had no idea where they were even coming from. The only entrance to the room was the one she and Neo had made use of to enter the room. The other was the one she was working on opening. The rest of the walls appeared to be solid rocks.

Pixie supposed that the voices could have been coming from behind the wall she was trying to open but, after pressing her ear to the puzzle, she ruled that out. The door was too thick to hear anything through. The voices didn't belong to someone waiting for them on the other side of the door.

Thinking it was just her, Pixie asked Neo to check if the voices were coming through the wall via the puzzle she was trying to solve. His own confirmation that he didn't hear anything through the wall made her feel a bit better. At least she wasn't missing something that was going to put them all in danger. Well, all two of them anyway.

Pixie had never been one to curse but, the way she was feeling at the moment, she knew, if she was, she'd be cursing a blue streak. The puzzle before her didn't want to be solved; she was on her third, heading towards her fourth try with it. The voices were getting louder and she had yet to figure out where they were coming from. Then there was Neo watching her back. She knew she shouldn't but Pixie was concerned about him too.

It wasn't that the young woman didn't trust Neo standing and acting as her very own personal body guard or anything of the sort. It was more like Pixie was worried he was going to get injured because she wasn't working fast enough or because of a silly mistake she made. It sounded self-centered, even in her own head. That something she did was going to control the outcome of an entire situation.

The odd thing was, no one would use the word "self-centered" to describe the medic-in-training. Pixie was just Pixie and being self-centered wasn't part of her. Self-depreciating, maybe, but not self-centered.

The young woman was more concerned that she was going to do something stupid--- as she sometimes felt she did ---and Neo was going to be the one who suffered for it. Pixie was acutely aware of who Morpheus thought Neo was and, if Morpheus was right, how important Neo was to the city she called home.

Pixie, herself, wasn't sure she believed in the "One" like some of her friends back home did but she trusted Morpheus and knew he counted on Neo to be the "One." That said, the young woman really didn't want Neo getting hurt under her watch. She knew she'd not only feel badly about Neo but she'd feel as if she'd let her captain down as well. After all, for all intents and purposes, she was the ranking officer in the program. She was supposed to be the more knowledgeable of the two.

"Alright, Pix," she mumbled speaking only to herself but feeling Neo radiate tension behind her. "We have to solve this. We just need to calm down."

She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to get her focus back. Taking a mental step back, Pixie took a look at the progress she'd made and what she still needed to know. It was a waste of valuable time, but Pixie figured it gave her a frame to work with.

All seven spaces were filled with symbols--- three similar and four very different ---while the lights above the wheels shone four yellows and three greens. The information was helpful, of course, but it wasn't entirely informative. She knew, thanks to the four yellow lights, that she had four symbols in their correct places but not which symbols those were. As for the greens, the green light let her know there were mistakes but not where those mistakes were.

Looking down at the red button in the center of the circles, Pixie noticed she only had a handful--- Literally speaking. She had five turns left. ---of turns left before the code reset itself and she'd have to start from square one. The code would change after five turns and she'd have to start anew. It was the nature of the puzzle, the fact it changed after so many turns. It made it so that she couldn't use any prior information to solve the puzzle when it changed. She'd have to start fresh; basically erasing everything she'd been working on from her mind and replacing it with a new set of ideas.

Looking at the circle, Pixie put her hands on where her hips would arguably be and weighed her options. There had to be a way to get the answer she was starting to get desperate about finding before her measly amount of turns ran out or they were discovered by the owners of the mystery voices. Being able to do both was a nice option as well.

She could always just guess but Pixie knew there was a chance that guessing was going to get her nowhere fast. It was just going to waste time she was starting to think she didn't even have.

With a sigh of frustration, Pixie placed her hands on the metal wheels once again, determined to crack the code before her. It was not her fears or worries that interrupted her this time, though. No, it was the grating sound of metal being moved against metal. The young woman craned her head around to see what was making the sound.

A frown crossed her elven featured face as she discovered the source of the noise. A frown she was almost sure Neo was wearing as he, too, figured out where the sound was coming from.

Where she and Neo had both thought that the ceiling above them was solid rock, a slat opened and a rope ladder was lowered into the room the pair stood in. The frown Pixie was wearing only deepened when she saw two ninja descend the ladder and step onto the stone floor of the room she and Neo were hole up on. Maybe they'd drilled through the rock, once upon a virtual time, to create the trap door they were using now. A trap door that had been so well hidden that both she and Neo had missed it more than once.

There was one thing that the young woman was sure of. Only one thing she could say for certain. She and Neo had run out of time. They were both in a great deal of trouble to say the least.

Before Pixie could say anything, or begin to panic about what was going on, though the that was going to happen regardless, Neo, without even looking at Pixie, said, "You keep working on that puzzle, Pix. I can handle these guys."

"Are you sure?" Pixie wanted to know, just as the pair of ninja discovered the two intruders making their way through their stronghold.

Pixie knew her question was moot--- It wasn't even answered ---when Neo turned to keep the pair of enemy ninjas off of her. She'd told him to watch her back and he was doing just that. If he was going to watch her back, like she'd asked him to, the Pixie decided she was going to what she'd been sent in to do.

She was going to solve the puzzle that had been set before her. It was the least she could do. It was the only fair thing for her to do.

Trying to ignore the sounds of battle behind her, Pixie focused her attention on the task at hand. At least, tried to anyway. A niggling something in the back of her head was telling her that something wasn't right. There was something wrong and she needed to see to it before going back to work on her puzzle.

What intuition Pixie had--- It wasn't as finely honed as the others she worked with, save her fellow rookies and, probably Neo but it was there. ---told her to turn away from her puzzle and check on Neo.

Though she knew it was going to be a blow to his ego, Pixie turned around to check on Neo's situation. She knew all of her attention should have been focused on the puzzle before her, like Neo's was on the fight he was currently involved in, but there was no way she was going to be able to concentrate. Not until she listened to the niggling voice in the back of her head and checked on the older male.

One ninja had been dispatched rather quickly, impressing the young woman since she knew she'd never be able to dispatch any ninja that fast. The virtual villain was half slumped against the wall, his head hanging at an odd and very unhealthy-if-he-was-human angle. Pixie frowned knowing that was one injury that, in the Real World and the Matrix, was a sure fire killer.

Having one's neck broken like that was, first, a sure fire way to get someone out of your way quickly and with little fuss. Secondly, it was something Pixie knew she could never hope to be able to do no matter how free her mind was. She was just never going to be able to force herself to believe she was that physically strong. Plus there was her whole dislike for killing…Pixie knew that was probably hampering her ability to do something like that.

The other ninja, however, was not only still standing but was appearing to be a problem for Neo. The virtual villain had, somehow, pulled a sword from the sheath his back and was fending off Neo with the weapon. The male rebel, having just his hands, was dancing out of the sword wielding ninja's way in an effort to avoid getting cut with the very thin but razor sharp weapon.

The ninja with the sword made Pixie frown. That was something she hadn't anticipated nor had she seen when the pair of ninja had first entered the room. The sword's sheath was as black as the uniform the virtual villain was wearing so she hadn't seen it. The young woman almost wanted to kick herself for not anticipating weapons. These ninjas always carried weapons in these games. They were never armed with just their martial arts skills. She had her sword so she guessed it was only "fair" for the villains to carry swords too.

Pixie decided she had two options, despite the fact that neither one of them very desirable to her given the circumstances. She could abandon the puzzle she was futilely working on and go bail Neo out, risking all of the thoughts she had brewing in her head wandering off and leaving her back at a very unhappy square one and Neo's confidence at the same time.

Then again, there was always the option of throwing her sword to Neo and allow him to finish what he started. If Neo hadn't done the sword training program they'd all run through--- Pixie had enjoyed that program for some reason. It was why swords were her weapons of choice in training programs. She still wasn't good enough with them, though, to use them in the Matrix. ---then he'd still be in trouble and she'd still have to bail him out.

Still, there was the good chance that Tank hadn't discarded that program--- It certainly wasn't another boring operation program. Though Pixie knew she couldn't say anything since she found even the so-called "boring operation programs" interesting. Anything that could be learned, except where numbers were concerned, was interesting to her. ---and Neo knew how to handle a sword. Her own sword might have been a bit lighter than what he was use to using and the grip featured raised rings so her smaller hands could get a better grip on the weapon. Despite the differences, it was still a sword

So as not to distract Neo and throw him off of his game or interrupt the delicate dance he was doing, Pixie kept her back to the wall with her own sheathed weapon in her hands. She bided her time, waiting for the proper moment to throw her weapon to the older male. Calling out to Neo to get his attention was something she could have done to make her life a lot easier but it wasn't what she wanted to do. Pixie felt doing that was just asking for trouble.

In her head, the young woman decided if she were to shout to get Neo's attention, there was a good chance he'd get distracted from his task at hand. The distraction would give the already armed ninja an advantage over the unarmed Neo. Not that the ninja needed an advantage over Neo since he was the one with the sword, after all.

Pixie was a patient person, despite the fact she was only nineteen years old. She could wait and bide her time just like the adult she figured she was supposed to be. Her fellow rookies, as well as some of her friends in Zion, figured she acted that way because of the job she had. She was acting like a patient adult because that was what was expected of her.

For as long as she could remember, Pixie had been an eerily patient person. Maybe it had something to do with the fact she'd been sick for so long in the Matrix. She had to wait to do things until she was feeling better. There were no rushing things when she'd been sick so Pixie had to learn to be patient. It didn't mean she had to like it but the lesson still had been learned.

Her careful watching was rewarded as Neo found himself being pushed back to where she was standing. As he got closer to her, close enough that she could touch if she reached out, Pixie unsheathed her sword. She held the blade in her hand, staring for a moment at the reflective metal surface as it warped her image.

As soon as the second ninja unsheathed his sword, Neo knew he was in a great deal of trouble. He'd be trained to use swords--- All manner of weaponry really which was more than a little disconcerting considered he had been a computer programmer once upon a time. ---but he didn't have a weapon of his own. Pixie, who was still working on that code breaker thing, had one but she was busy. Neo thought, for all of a moment, about asking her to switch places with him--- fight the sword wielding ninja ---but decided against it.

He was supposed to be watching her back while she worked. Though he was very new at all of this, Neo wanted to keep his promise to the young woman who was trying her hardest to crack the code before her. He was going to try and watch Pixie's back as best he could. Though this guy with the sword, virtual or not, was making that really hard.

Before he knew it, though, Neo found Pixie pressing her sword into the hand he'd pulled back for a strike. He fumbled to get a grip on the weapon, lowering his guard for a moment and dancing out of the way of another strike.

"What?" Neo blurted as Pixie went to turn back to her puzzle

"Just to even the odds," Pixie, tersely, answered.

She hadn't meant it to sound so rude but she knew time was off the essence. There was no time--- even virtual time ---for her to give Neo a list of reasons why he should take up her sword. All she had time for was a blurted phrase so he could go back to watching her work and he could go back to watching her back.

Pixie made a mental note, before going back to work, to apologize to Neo later on. Rude was not something Pixie wanted to be. She preferred to be polite, even in their rougher circumstances. Bring something nice into a world that definitely wasn't nice.

A world that would be a whole lot nicer, in her opinion anyway, if she could get the puzzled before her solved.


	7. Helter Skelter

AN: Heya everyone! Welcome back to my mini-misadventure. I've been busy having misadventures in that annoying place we all call the Real World. I've been trying to find a job and trying to reconcile the fact my Girl Scout troop's holiday talent show got dumped in my lap. I was supposed to have help but my help decided she didn't want to be useful so I wound up doing it myself. Then again, I usually get the December Girl Scout project dumped in my lap. My sister's usually my help and she' too busy spending all of December celebrating her birthday to bother helping anyone do anything. That and complaining how she has Christmas shopping to do. Mine is almost done actually…just have one more gift to get. Anywho! Thanks to everyone out there still reading this misadventure. Thank you so very much for taking the time out of your day to read this little story. Please remember, I'm open to any reviews…good, bad, or indifferent. Just let me know what you're thinking!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"When I get to the bottom  
I go back to the top of the slide  
Where I stop and turn  
and I go for a ride  
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again  
Yeah, yeah, yeah…" (From "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles)

Though she'd told almost everyone she knew that she had no luck whatsoever, Pixie was almost entirely sure that her life was ruled by some kind of dumb luck. It wasn't good luck but it wasn't bad luck either. It was just what it was…it was dumb luck. Things just tended to happen to her whenever she needed them happen. Whether those things were good or bad, what she wanted or what she didn't want, that part didn't matter. Things just tended to happen to Pixie and she always chalked them up to just dumb luck.

During her days in the Matrix, Pixie was sure she had to be one of the unluckiest people in the false reality she'd been calling home. At the time, the young girl that would become Pixie realized that there were plenty of people in situations worse than the one she found herself living through. She understood that her situation was just one of many bad things happening in the world--- a world she'd learn was false but that was another story and one she didn't know at the time ---but when things were at their worst, when she was sickest, Pixie didn't care about those other people. It was almost as if they didn't exist and her situation had become the direst in the entire world. It was hard for her to digest the idea that she was just barely fifteen years old and was dying.

The girl that was to become Pixie one day didn't understand why she had to suffer for a choice her mother had made. She hadn't asked to be born sick; she hadn't asked to die at a young age. It just didn't seem fair to her in her most selfish moments.

Thanks to her dumb luck, Pixie found a way to beat back the illness that had threatened her life and found herself being given a choice. A choice with consequences she could only dream about. It was the choice that would gave her a new lease on life.

Pixie had never looked back, never thought about what life would have been like if she hadn't taken that red pill just after her fifteenth birthday. She'd been only too glad to make the choice that saved her life, even if it meant facing a world that she knew nothing about. After all, who wanted to be fifteen years old with no family and a death sentence hanging over their head?

Whatever unknown she was being forced to face because she'd taken the red pill, well, it had to be better than the "reality" she'd known. Her dumb luck had held out then, and Pixie found Zion--- despite it lacked every creature comfort the Matrix provided its unlucky inhabitants ---a far better home than the Matrix had ever been. Who she was, was a far cry from who she'd been…except for a few personality quirks and the fact she still seemed to be possessed by dumb luck.

Pixie found herself thanking her dumb luck while locked in the small hallway with Neo, a sword wielding ninja, and a puzzle that just didn't want to be solved. The dumb luck that helped her find an exit from the Matrix was the very same dumb luck that got both Pixie and Neo out of the small room.

Maybe, though the idea made Pixie almost break down into giggles, her dumb luck was just really good at finding exits from places. That was one thing Pixie had yet to consider, though it did make a certain kind of sense, all situations considered.

With one turn left and six green lights--- and one annoying yellow light that just seemed to refuse to turn green no matter what she did ---Pixie turned the wheel one random symbol over in a rather desperate attempt to solve the puzzle that had been set before her.

There was a long moment where nothing happened. A moment where Pixie's blood turned to ice as she became convinced that the door wasn't going to open and she'd have to start at square one. She held her breath and danced from foot to foot, worried for both herself and for Neo. If they didn't get this puzzle solved, if Neo didn't dispatch the ninja, the two of them could possibly find themselves in a world of problems. Well, more problems than they were having now.

Suddenly, with the creaking sounds of gears that needed to be oiled in the worst way, the door slid open. Pixie smiled and turned to tell Neo to get a move on just in case the ninjas were bringing friends along. Her turning caught Neo using her sword to put a stop to the virtual ninja's attacks once and for all.

Without looking back--- there was no reason to, in Pixie's mind, since the fight seemed to be over and her puzzle solved. ---the pair bolted through the door. As soon as Neo passed through the metal portal, the door creaked back into place, effectively sealing off the earlier part of the maze.

With the earlier parts of the maze sealed off, turning back was not an option for Pixie and Neo. Though choice was an important part of living in the Real World--- after all, they'd all chosen to see the truth. ---this program seemed to be giving the pair no choice. They either had to press onward or stay where they were. Since the latter wasn't really an option, Pixie and Neo wandered deeper into the maze.

"Sorry about that before," the young woman broached, as she and Neo walked along another twisting, turning length of rocky hallway. "I didn't mean to sound so gruff with you before. It was just the...I don't know...heat of the moment or the gravity of the situation we were in I guess. Either way, I didn't mean to shout at you like that. You're older than I am so I shouldn't be doing things like that."

Neo blinked, still not quite sure what to make of the young woman he was training with. Despite the fact he saw her on a daily basis on the ship they called home, Neo couldn't help but think that Pixie was something Tank or Mouse or whoever had programmed this little game had thrown in to throw him off his game. No one in their situation, he figured, should be acting as polite and, generally, innocent as Pixie was at the moment. After all, she'd been in the Real World longer than he but she was apologizing for now showing him respect because he was, physically, older than she was.

As far as Neo could tell, though, the Pixie that was trotting alongside him was the same dark haired young woman he saw on a daily basis. She might have been a bit more talkative now but he figured that was just because she was in her element. Solving puzzles seemed to make her happy for some strange reason.

"That's alright," he answered, sounding as stunned as he figured he looked and wondering if Pixie--- who was wearing a far away expression on her face ---was even listening to him to begin with. "I should give you this back, anyway. It is yours after all."

Though Pixie looked like she wasn't paying any attention to him, the young woman took back her sword. With one quick motion, she slipped the weapon back into the sheath that hung from the green sash she had about her waist. Well, where her waist was supposed to be anyway. Pixie had long ago resigned herself to the fact she was build on a smaller scale than most females.

There was a very small part of her that was glad to have the weapon back in its sheath. Though its weight was slight, Pixie missed that added bit of weight she'd gotten use to carrying with her.

Pixie was sure that it was the same part of her mind that wished she could take the light weight sword into the Matrix with her. As much as she knew she'd enjoy having it with her, Pixie was well aware of the fact that she couldn't use her sword in the Matrix. She still wasn't proficient enough in using it for a sword to be part of her normal arsenal of Matrix weaponry.

Besides, swords were far messier and more dangerous to use than standard issue firearms. Though Pixie had her own personal issues with firearms, requiring some creative thinking on the part of her Captain and Operator. She now carried both standard issue firearms as well as weapons of her own liking.

"I was more than a little worried you skipped sword training and that you weren't going to be able to use it. Tank's a good Operator but sometimes he for skips the programs he thinks are boring. I'm sure he told you his feelings about the Operations programs," Pixie stated, still looking around the hall they stood in instead of the person walking with her.

With a soft giggle and a very slight skip in her step, she added "I probably shouldn't have said that. If Tank's out there Operating, he's going to make us pay for that one."

"Either way," the medic-in-training pointed out, finally looking in Neo's general direction, though it was just over his left shoulder. "I'm just glad that you didn't get hurt or anything like that. I was kind of worried that you'd skipped the sword training programs and were going to wind up getting injured. I know Morpheus wouldn't be pleased if that were to happen. Everyone on the ship knows who Morpheus thinks you're supposed to be."

Neo's face fell a fraction of an inch, something Pixie caught even though she'd never been very good at reading people's facial expressions. Not that Pixie blamed Neo, for the expression he was currently wearing. If their roles had been reversed, if she'd been told what Neo had been told upon his unplugging--- Pixie was almost grateful Morpheus had never thought she was the One. From the day she'd woken up, Pixie had just been herself. She'd just been another freed mind and now a member of the Resistance. ---she would have been a bit overwhelmed herself.

"You believe him too?" Neo wanted to know, as the pair turned a corner and found themselves facing another long hallway.

Pixie shrugged, her covered shoulders moving under their neon green paultrons, and answered, "I'm not sure what I believe just yet. I mean, it would be nice if there was one person to end the war since it's been going on for so long--- Captain Morpheus says that it's been going on for over one hundred years --- but I don't know if one person could end such a long standing conflict. That's a lot to expect from a single person, you know, even if that person has the powers Morpheus says the One is supposed to have."

"Yeah, I know," Neo mumbled, not sure if he was glad Pixie believed in the whole idea of the One or not.

Looking at the young woman--- who'd gone back to staring around the space they were walking through ---Neo added, "What are you looking for anyway?"

"Just making sure to remember the way we came," Pixie answered, not looking at Neo as she spoke. "If we get lost or anything like that, we can always find this place and not be forced to wander. There's nothing wrong with wandering around without a goal in mind but that's always an excuse to get attacked by ninjas in these games. I know this is a fighting program but I'd rather not have to fight. I kind of would rather just solve puzzles. It's a silly personal preference sort of thing, I guess."

"Is that why you came in here?" Neo asked. "Just to solve puzzles?"

Pixie gave Neo an embarrassed nod and answered, "I don't mind training--- The martial arts kind I mean. ---but I know my own limits. I'm not as big or as strong or as fast as anyone else. I do know I can solve puzzles, whatever use that skill is when we're in the Matrix, so I train my brain along with my body. It's just that, I like solving puzzles more than fighting ninjas some days. In a very strange sort of way, the whole puzzle solving thing helps me relax."

Placing orbs as they went--- even blowing a hole in a wall that just happened to be in their way, which made the young woman giggle a bit as she and Neo hunkered down under a pile of crates as to avoid injury from the explosion ---Pixie was surprised to find their way relatively unguarded. The fact the path they were taking was unguarded struck the young woman as more than a little strange.

She'd half expected to meet some strong resistance as she and Neo made their way from the bowels of the virtual stronghold into the virtual light of day, if that was how the game was going to be played. Their escape being as easy as it was now, well, that just didn't seem likely. There was always a lot of work, even when there were just puzzled to be solved and no ninjas to fight,

A knowing feeling in her gut and in the back of her head, the place where she got all of her trusted information, told her that they were being given a break. The worst was yet to come. This was just break so they could gather their strength again before setting off the next puzzle or trap.

As the pair carefully stepped into another hallway--- This one looked like it was being used for nothing but storage as it was piled high with wooden crates. ---Pixie put one of her black jumpsuit clad arms out to keep Neo behind her. There was something off about the room, a minor seeming detail that had caught her attention.

Some of the boxes, not all of them but most of them, had winking little metal objects on them. The little objects--- tiny spheroids ---sat on several of the surfaces with their little red eyes winking and blinking from all directions.

No sooner had Pixie taken her first tentative steps into the room, red lines shot from the eyes on the spheroids. The red lines tangled and crossed to create a web around the room. A web that effectively walled Pixie and Neo in at the entrance of the room.

Pixie hissed as one of the lines--- laser she figured because they certainly weren't harmless lights like she'd initially suspected ---caught her on the arm. The laser opened up a small space in her body stocking, burning straight through to the skin underneath. Since it ran at such high heat, the line of light cauterized the gash it opened up so it didn't bleed but it still stung in the worst way.

"So much for getting out of here unscathed," Pixie mumbled, looking at her arm with a frown on her face.

Once she got out of the program, Pixie knew she was going to have to go have her arm looked at. Hypothetically, Pixie knew she could do that herself--- Even though she was still considered a "medic-in-training," she had enough training to see to something as simple as the injury she'd just received. ---but Pixie knew that Morpheus would insist Dozer have a look at it first just to be sure everything was fine. Besides, it was on her right arm and she was right handed. It was a little hard--- Even for the double jointed young woman ---to work on her dominant hand. Double jointed and ambidextrous were not the same thing, despite what Hawk thought.

That said, Pixie decided that maybe it was best Dozer took a look at her arm. She didn't want to give herself another scar because she tried to stitch the wound up herself. Trying that once was enough.

"You alright?" Neo asked, wincing as he saw the furrow cut into Pixie's arm.

"I'd lie and tell you that it didn't hurt but it does," Pixie answered, swinging her arm in an experimental sort of way. "But I'm a really lousy liar and it really does hurt."

With a genial sort of smile, meant to calm Neo down a bit, Pixie added, "It doesn't really hurt all that much though. It just sort of stings. I guess we should be careful of those lasers."

"I guess so," Neo agreed, "so what now?"


	8. Welcome to the Jungle

AN: HAPPY 2009 EVERYONE! I hope everyone had a very Happy Holidays and had an awesome New Year's! Here's hoping that everyone's 2009 is one million times better than everyone's 2008! Me? I got lots of books for Christmas, which made me happy, including a new book of essays about _The Matrix_ trilogy. I always like reading those to find out how other people view the trilogy and _The Animatrix_. This book surprised me, actually, because it had a few essays in it about the game _Enter the Matrix_. I suppose it was published before _The Matrix: Path of Neo_ came out because that game wasn't mentioned in the book. Anywho, thanks to everyone out there still reading this or any of my stories! I really do appreciate you taking the time out to read my mess of a story! Please, feel free to leave me a review…good, bad, or indifferent! I'm open to anyone and everyone's opinions!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Welcome to the jungle  
We got fun 'n' games  
We got everything you want…" (From "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses)

Pixie looked around the small space, wondering just how they were supposed to get around the red lasers since, as her arm attested, they couldn't just walk through them. She knew it was entirely possible that they'd taken a wrong turn and that the lasers were a deterrent but Pixie wasn't entirely convinced of that just yet.

Though she didn't have to, Pixie squinted through the net of lasers. She knew she could have been very wrong but there appeared to be a ladder at the end of the hallway.

Generally speaking--- Pixie figured she'd been through enough of Tank's puzzles to be able to speculate on patterns in how they were constructed. ---ladders usually meant you were headed in the right direction. Going in the wrong direction, usually meant meeting with dead ends with angry virtual ninjas or whatever other beasties were programmed into the puzzle waiting with weapons in hand.

Mouse was more the one to program false leads with ladders that led into booby trap ridden rooms. Pixie had, more than once, run around in circles just trying to find an exit in one of Mouse's programs. Not that Tank's programs were easy, by any means. His programs tended towards harder puzzles with trickier stipulations. It was, in a way, a case of quality over quantity. Tank's favored higher quality puzzles--- ones that were harder to solve but fewer in number ----while Mouse favored lots of simpler puzzles that drove Pixie insane.

Noticing a sconce in the wall, the young woman slipped a yellow orb into the wall, hoping to open an alternate route to the ladder she thought she'd seen. Much to her annoyance, the alternate route she was hoping for didn't open.

Instead, the orb sat in the sconce, glaring at Pixie with its swirly yellow color like some sort of strange eye. Mumbling something at the orb, which made Neo look over at the young woman in confusion; Pixie replaced the yellow orb with its blue brother. The blue orb--- the explosive one ---yielded the same result. It simply sat in the sconce, staring at Pixie almost mocking her with its swirly blue gaze.

"Either that," Pixie mumbled, reaching into the pouch at her side and pulling out the only green orb she and Neo had managed to collect on their little journey. "Or it's just a weird decoration to throw us off."

Silently hoping that it wasn't just a decoration, Pixie removed the blue orb and replaced it with the single green orb she'd been carrying. Slipping the orb into the wall caused a line of bright green--- Neon green like the symbols that were the Matrix on an Operator's monitor ---to drip down the wall and pool at a small indent in the rock near Pixie's feet. The pool spread, like water that had been spilled, to form an almost square shape in the floor. The square-like shape moved into the floor, revealing a hole in the ground.

Both Neo and Pixie looked at the space in the floor. It was far too small for either of them to fit into. It was just sort of there, sitting in the ground and adding to the puzzle around them. Shrugging, Pixie reached into the small space, feeling around for a switch or some kind of lever that might open a door of any kind. Instead she found herself pulling out a brown sack. Opening the tie that held the sack shut, Pixie peered into the bag and felt a frown spread over her face. She suddenly knew where this puzzle was going.

"What's in there?" Neo asked, as Pixie, still frowning, handed him the bag.

Opening the drawstring that held mouth of the bag shut, Neo spotted what looked to be a pile of metal throwing stars. It didn't take much extra thought to figure out just what they were supposed to be doing with the stars the bag held.

"Target practice,' Pixie pointed out, just saying it out lout to get it out in the open since she knew both of them knew what they had to do to get through the laser netted room.

Part of Pixie felt better just saying the whole point of the room out loud. Chian, one of her friends who was, currently, serving on the _Logos_, had said that getting things out in the open made them better. Her older friend had been talking about Pixie and the odd entity--- Well it wasn't so odd anymore. The two of them had figured that one out, thankfully, and they were both better for it. ---that was her relationship with Wheeler at the time, though. The logic to Chian's words seemed to apply to the current situation she and Neo found themselves in. Just stating the obvious seemed to be the right thing to do for some strange reason.

"This isn't one of your puzzles?" Neo asked, noticing that Pixie had yet to stop frowning and seemed to be trying to find a balance between nervousness and discomfort at what they were being presented with.

"Not at all," Pixie stated, "Unless we're trying to find a pattern on how these things have to be knocked out so we can get through--- but I kind of doubt that fact --- these aren't a puzzle. This is just a game of target practice for the two of us."

Pixie knew throwing stars weren't her weapon of choice. Throwing anything wasn't her specialty. In a pinch, Pixie figured she could but they weren't her weapon of choice. There was only one person Pixie could think of, off handed anyway, who had a specialty in throwing stars, knives, and anything else, actually.

Wheeler--- her scruffy looking better than best friend who worked on the _Shatterpoint_ ---was supposedly an expert on throwable weapons. He'd been a pitcher in the Matrix, accidently bending the rules of the false reality around him in order to make himself more accurate with his pitches and to stave off shoulder damage.

Now, though, he used his talents to throw knives and stars instead of fastballs and sliders. It was a strange use of his ability to throw things, he once admitted to Pixie, since he'd been use to throwing only baseballs. Then again, Pixie remembered a story he'd told her about how he'd found a baseball and used it to smash open a door--- She assumed he'd bent more than one of the rules in the Matrix to do that. ---to get to an exit.

Glancing at the stars in the bag---- She wasn't about to actually stick her hand in the bag to count because throwing stars were, by nature, sharp. ---Pixie assumed they had only a finite number of tries before they had to start thinking about alternate ways to get across the hallway. Already, part of Pixie was trying to figure out how best to climb across the tops of the boxes without getting sliced to ribbons by the lasers.

She's almost figured out a perfectly good route for her to use--- One that involved a great deal of crawling, twisting, and turning over the crates that were stacked around the room ---but she wasn't entirely sure Neo could follow her path. She'd seen him fight in the Construct against the others on the ship but that was no way to tell just how flexible someone was.

Adding to the problem was the fact Neo was taller and wider, so to speak, than she was. That made things just a bit more difficult. Pixie knew she was short and narrow when compared to, well, just about everyone she knew. The route she could traverse might not be as easy for someone bigger than she was.

"So, what are we going to do?" Neo wanted to know, taking one of the throwing stars out of the bag and examining it.

It was atypical looking, as far as throwing stars went. It was a bright silvery color with five very sharp looking edges and a hole in the center. It wasn't exactly heavy but it did have some weight to it. Enough to gain momentum and cause damage to a target.

The hole had an aerodynamic purpose, of course, but Pixie knew that it was there for another reason. It was there because the first throwing stars--- if there was such a thing and that, too, wasn't just something the Matrix cooked up for their viewing pleasure ---were fashioned from washers and household items with holes in them.

"I think we can try and climb up and over the crates but I'm not sure that's what we're supposed to be doing anyway. Either that or we use these stars to knock those sensors out of commission," Pixie answered. "That seems like what we're actually supposed to be doing to begin with."

Looking at the room, noting that there were sensors placed quite far away from where she and Neo were standing, Pixie had the beginnings of an idea. Target practice was just simply too straightforward for Tank, even if it was really hard target practice. There had to be something else, some other reason why they were being thrown into this sort of situation.

Things weren't always as simple as just playing a game of target practice with a bag of throwing stars. There was always some twist, some strange little quirk to the way these programs ran.

Even the most basic ones, the ones they all ran through as they were training, all had twists in them. Pixie was sure they were in there just to drive home the point that nothing was as it seemed in the Matrix. Everything was something else or, at least, had the potential to be something else. Sure it made them paranoid and prone to over thinking--- Though the latter might have just been Pixie. Chian was always fond of saying that Pixie over thought everything, which wasn't a good thing. ---but Pixie figured paranoia and over thinking were always a better combination than dead and buried.

"I'm wrong," she mumbled, though Pixie really hated to admit that fact out loud.

Pixie knew she wasn't as smart as people said she was. The young woman knew that there were plenty of other people out there who were infinitely smarter than she could ever hope to be. Still, she had a strong dislike for being wrong. Pixie knew she couldn't be right all the time but being wrong was not something she liked.

Worse yet was when she had to admit she was wrong. Pixie had very little in the way of an ego but she still didn't like to admit she was wrong about things.

"What were you wrong about?" Neo broached, returning the throwing star to the bag. "This does look like target practice."

"It still is," Pixie answered. "With a twist. We know those spheres control the lasers, right? Knocking them down probably turns off the lasers but there's no rule that says that they'll go down in a helpful order."

Noticing that Neo looked a bit...confused...Pixie explained, "If we knock out that sphere over there to my right, there's nothing to say that it'll take out the lasers closest to us. It might just as easily take out the ones across the room and leave us standing here. All of them are going to have to be taken out but I think there has to be a method to how they're taken out otherwise we're going to spend a lot of time stuck in this spot trying to make impossible shots."

Before he could stop himself--- It didn't seem right to question someone who'd been doing this longer than he. ---Neo asked, "What makes you say that?"

Neo wasn't at all surprised with Pixie's response as she shrugged and answered, "I don't know. These programs always have two purposes. Nothing is what it seems in here so we learn not to totally trust what goes on in the Matrix, I guess. Something like that anyway."

With a sigh, Pixie fished out a throwing star from the bag they'd discovered. She knew there was only one way to test her theory on how the net of lasers functioned. Only one way she could think to decide, once and for all, whether or not the net ran in the way she hoped it ran.

Picking out the sphere nearest to her, Pixie lined up her shot as best she could. Even after a year of working on the ship she called home, the young woman found she was still amazed by everything she could do both in the Construct and in the Matrix. After all, never in her wildest Matrix created dreams did she ever imagine she'd be able to do martial arts or bend and tumble like a gymnast.

If anything, her Matrix created dreams were a bit on the bland side. The ones she had were nothing to write home about, if she had a home to write back to then. Just the ordinary dreams of a young teenager, she figured, despite the fact her circumstances were very different from what anyone might call normal.

Pixie still wasn't sure if she had interesting dreams now but her wildest dreams--- which were probably best described as daydreams when she had moments to spare ---were a bit different now. Actually, Pixie wasn't sure if she had daydreams either and what they entailed.

Shaking herself free of her own reverie and giving Neo a sheepish sort of smile to apologize for her mental wanderings, Pixie took a deep breath and let it out. Thinking other thoughts, about her daydreams or what things were like for her now as compared to how they were back when she was in the Matrix, weren't exactly conductive to the situation they were in now. If she wanted to dwell on such things, Pixie knew she could do so as she made a brave attempt at sleeping later on. That was definitely one holdover from the false reality, her inability to sleep well.

Pixie looked from the target to the throwing star in her hand and back again. As carefully as she possibly could--- saying a silent prayer to whoever was out there listening to make her aim true or, at least, close enough to true as she could get. ---Pixie hurled the five-pronged star in the general direction of the sphere.

The lethal star whizzed through the air, in a sort of steady looking flight, heading for the red eyed orb that was its target. Pixie watched, her brandy brown eyes focused on the throwing star's flight, hoping that she had luck enough hit her target on her first shot. She wasn't keen on wasting any of the stars they had since the bag only held so many stars and they didn't seem to be self-replenishing or anything like that. Wasting stars, she figured, meant she or Neo would have to crawl around and find the ones that had missed their targets. Pixie didn't want to risk getting singed again nor did she want to risk Neo's skin either by doing that.

After all, Neo had a lot more skin showing than she did as both his arms were bare. It would have been easier for him to get burned by the humming lasers that were trapping the two of them. At least, she had more clothing covering her. It was thick and made of spandex but it still covered almost all her body. That had to count for something.

She made a happy sort of sound--- A high pitched squeal of delight that she usually tried to curb whenever she was around those she worked with because it was, by general consensus, considered to be a very immature sound. Pixie figured it was alright to use it in front of her friends in Zion or, maybe, just Wheeler, she wasn't sure. ---as the throwing star found its target. The lasers closest to the pair fizzled out as the star embedded itself in one of its red eyes, leaving the path out of the room just a bit clearer.

"Do you want to try the next one?" Pixie questioned, offering Neo a throwing star from the bag she picked up off the ground--- She didn't remember how it got there but that's where she found it. ---like it was just a piece of candy or a cookie or something other random, mundane and safe object that came in a bag.

They pair had made it to the halfway point in the room but they were trapped between a wall and a hard place so to speak. The first few spheres had broken the laser created net in an uneven sort of way. Some lines that were close to them, allowing them to move, had broken, just as Pixie had figured. Others had broken in places that were further away, in locations that weren't exactly all that helpful to the pair. There was no neat line down the center of the room, as Pixie had dared to hope. That didn't seem to be part of the game they were playing.

Case in point, at the moment and after following the trail they were slowly and steadily creating, Pixie and Neo were standing between the rocky wall and a tangle of laser lines. They'd found themselves in a weird shaped space, trapped and trying to figure out how to move forward.

The odd angle--- The fact the two of them were tucked in one rather tight corner ---seemed to be a necessity as the next sphere was tucked in a far flung corner at a weird angle. The only way Pixie and Neo knew it was even there was because of the odd twist the path had formed. It allowed the mismatched pair to see into the small space between two separate piles of boxes. It was in that space that the sphere sat, projecting red laser lines and keeping Pixie and Neo that much further away from their goal.

"I don't know if I can hit that, Pix," Neo pointed out. "That's a little out of the way."

Pixie cocked her head to one side, looking as if she was studying the sphere, its location, and how best to tackle turning it off. Even if she wasn't aware of what she was doing, the young woman was doing just that in the unconscious part of her brain.

Everyone knew that Pixie had no love for math and numbers but they had both been part of her medical training. As in the Matrix--- and for reasons Pixie and most of her fellow young medics-in-training could never understand ---they were forced to study the triad known as physics, calculus, and statistics. Among the general population of students, they were also known as the hardest of all the courses. Those and Organic Chemistry for some strange reason were the ones that were always failed.

Though Pixie liked to learn things the "old fashioned way," which amused her Zion Born friends to no end since she could have easily breezed through physics, calculus, and statistics with uploads, the young woman was extremely glad that all her higher level math training could simply be uploaded in her head. Sure, she'd never understand the theory of what she was doing--- Unlike other parts of her medic training where she made sure to actually read and learn the theories behind most of what she had to do. There were just things about physics she figured she'd never understand the theory behind. ---but she wouldn't have to put up with the headaches that learning about math gave her. That was a trade off Pixie was more than willing to make.

The strange thing was, in the eyes of her friends anyway, that Pixie wasn't really that bad with numbers. It wasn't as if she was totally inept when it came to numbers and math related things. She knew what she was doing, even before all the uploaded training, yet another fact that drove her Zion Born friends mad. She'd say how much she disliked math and try to play it off like she wasn't all that great at it--- similar to what she did for everything else ---but the truth was she knew what she was doing. She just didn't admit it because she didn't think it was true.

Whatever the case was, whatever anyone thought about it, Pixie knew it didn't mean she had to like numbers, math, or anything related to either topic. She disliked them and that was, basically, that.

Either way, though, Pixie stood with her head cocked to one side, with mathematical calculations racing through her head, giving her information she wasn't entirely sure she even needed to know at the moment.

All Pixie really wanted to know was how easy or hard it was to break the sphere with the minimum number of throwing stars. She wasn't really keen on wasting any more of their dwindling supply of throwing stars. They'd been able to recover some of them as they moved--- finding them on the floor or stuck in the crates themselves. She hadn't taken any out of the orbs lest removing them reactivate the orb and recreate the net they'd been trapped in. ---but not as many as Pixie would have liked. She'd missed more than once and had seen the stars wind up behind boxes where she couldn't get them.

There was even one at the foot of the ladder on the other side of the hallway. The young woman wasn't entirely sure how that one wound up all the way over there. Her aim wasn't exactly that bad or at least that's what she'd thought. Pixie guessed that she'd been wrong and, yes, her aim was that bad. Pixie had already decided she'd need to work a bit harder on that.

"Actually," Pixie pointed out, trying to convince Neo to try just once since her little game was, technically speaking, supposed to be a training simulation for both of them. "This one might not be as hard as the other ones even if the angle's strange. It's nicely framed by the boxes and everything so that could make it easier."

With something like a friendly smile, she added, "Besides, this is training. I'm almost sure you have to do some training too. That's part of the game, I guess you could say."

As of replaying her words in her head--- something Neo was sure Pixie did even before starting to speak ---the medic-in-training, hastily, added, "Not that you're not well trained, of course. I mean, the programs are rather thorough and almost everyone on the ship's an excellent teacher. Nothing against, Mouse and Hawk but they're not the teaching type. I'm not really either. I guess that's something that comes with age or experience or something."

Neo looked sort of stunned at Pixie, barely understanding her since she was talking a mile a minute. He was stunned half because it was rare to hear Pixie speak at all, ever. What's more, he'd heard her talk more during the course of the training program than during his entire time on Morpheus's ship. Maybe that was related to the other part of the reason why Neo was stunned. Not only was Pixie talking but she was babbling. She was talking quickly and sort of aimlessly because it seemed like Pixie was afraid she'd offended him in some way.

Neo was acutely aware of the fact he was new to the Real World--- His hair hadn't even started to make its return, in actuality. ---but Pixie, who'd admitted she'd been out of the Matrix since she was fifteen years of age, was afraid she'd said something to offend him. Neo knew he could have chalked it up to the fact that she, like Morpheus, thought he was the One but that didn't fit the situation. Pixie had openly admitted to him that she wasn't sure she believed in the whole idea of the One.

Pixie was just reacting to the fact she was, outright, afraid she'd gone an offended him. There was nothing special about the reaction, about why she was giving him something like an apology. She just hadn't wanted to offend him, which was strange to Neo.

Pixie was different from any nineteen year old he'd ever seen in the Matrix, Neo was very sure about that fact. To him, the medic-in-training was a confused muddle that combined a serious adult--- After all, she was a soldier and often looked serious on the ship ---with a nervous kid. What she was before coming out of the Matrix was a mystery to him. Neo supposed that she was just the average, run of the mill high school student who'd turned hacker or something like that.

"I could use the practice," he said, trying to stop Pixie's babbled apology. "I did the weapons training program with Apoc and Switch but, like you said, this is training."

Pixie, who was fiddling with the bottom of her braid behind her back in an effort to get rid of some of her nervous energy, felt a small frown cross her face. She remembered those programs quite vividly.

The most vivid of them were her first memories of being given a gun and told to use it. It had been simple target practice--- bottles lined up on a distant wall of all the simple things---but it still felt very uncomfortable to her. The weapon she'd been given felt awkward and bulky with her thin fingered hands wrapped around its grip. Even now or, maybe, more so now because of what she knew, they still felt awkward in her hands.

"Those programs were hard," Pixie admitting holding out the bag she'd discovered and watched Neo, gingerly, extract one of the throwing stars. "There are still some weapons I can't use no matter how much I free my mind. The recoil on some of them just throws me off balance because of my size."

Neo looked at the shiny, metallic object he'd taken from the bag the young woman carried. He was still having an issue thinking of Pixie as a young woman. She really did look more like a girl than a woman, even in the ninja gear. Like Pixie, he stared at it for a good, long while before turning to take a shot at the glowing sphere.

Standing back a bit, making a conscious effort not to get into Neo's way, Pixie watched the older man's throw. It was a good shot that was true, and looked to be on target. It was slicing through the air, whizzing towards its destination across the small space. She held her breath--- Pixie knew it was silly but, well, she couldn't help herself. ---silently wishing for the shot to be true.

She cheered a bit as the star hit its target, knocking it off of the boxes and onto the stone floor. More of the red laser lines winked out of existence and the path before them opened up a bit more. Only a few paces more but it was still an improvement. Better than being stuck in the corner.

Wearing a small smile, still feeling a bit sheepish about her babbling like a fool, Pixie offered Neo the bag of dwindling throwing stars and asked, "You want to take this next shot too?"


	9. Puddles

AN: Heya everyone out there still reading this! I would have had this chapter up sooner but Girl Scouts decided it didn't like me. I've been doing Girl Scout cookie paper work and trying to get this party we're having--- a Snowflake Ball ---together. I was supposed to have help from my sister but she sort of snowflaked out of it because she doesn't like to work. She claims she's too tired and she doesn't like Girl Scouts anyway. She only, really, does it because our mother runs the troop and my sister and I were sort of wrangled into taking part. Thing is, I like doing it and my sister sees it as a chore but I guess dealing with fifteen 12 to 18 year olds isn't really easy. I assume kids are tough at that age. Me? I have fifteen 3 to 7 year olds to deal with at Girl Scouts. At least, if I want them to be good, I promise them stickers and stuff. Anywho! To anyone out there still reading this story, thank you very much for taking time out to do so. I really do appreciate it. Please, leave a review for me if you don't mind! I'm always open to constructive criticism and opinions, whether they be good, bad, or indifferent!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"What you need is a different sky  
Find some water where it should be dry  
Jump through the surface  
and soon you'll see,  
a different world is where you'll be

What you need is a different sky  
Find some water where it should be dry  
Jump through the surface  
and soon you'll see,  
another world..." (From "Puddles" by Phontaine [Featuring Gemma])

Lasers dealt with and her arm feeling normal--- Thankfully, it had only grazed her skin through the unitard she wore. The laser hadn't burned any deeper than that. If it had, Pixie knew it would have made mess of her scrawny but present arm muscles. ---Pixie scurried up the ladder room full of spheres had been protecting. Neo was waiting at the bottom of said ladder for her "all clear" sign before starting up behind her.

It was a strange sensation for Pixie, to play the role of leader to anyone. Taking charge wasn't something she enjoyed doing, even in the remotest way. Even among her friends back home in Zion, Pixie wasn't the one to take charge of the group.

In actuality, Pixie seemed to enjoy her role as a background player. Nothing seemed to make Pixie happier supporting her friends from the background…even if she seemed, at times, unwilling to help. That was just where school was concerned. Any other time, doing any other thing Pixie was more than willing to back up her small group of friends. She figured that's what friends, real friends, did after all.

If anyone was the leader of her small group of friends in Zion, it was Aisling. It was a position the Zion born female--- also a medic-in-training but on a different hovercraft---seemed to be particularly proud of despite the fact the group consisted of herself, her twin brother Adoh, and three Pod Borns--- Pixie, Wheeler, and Ngaio. Conall, Aisling's on again, off again boyfriend, was part of their small group, as well, depending on what was going on between him and Aisling at the time. If they were on good terms, he was part of the group. If not, well, he wasn't and was off with his friends Castor and Pollux.

Either way, as Pixie reached the top of the ladder and flashed Neo a thumbs up to tell him it was safe to follow her, it felt strange to have someone following her orders in a combat situation, even if that combat was virtual in nature. Stranger still, to Pixie anyway, was the fact that, physically speaking, Neo was older than she was. In her mind, the young woman figured their roles should have been reversed. He should be leading because he was older and she should be following him because she was younger.

Pixie knew that her logic--- the idea that Neo should be leading her through the maze because he was older and she should follow because she was younger ---wasn't really sound because Neo had been freed a long while after her. Technically speaking then, that made her older than Neo. That was idea that Pixie was still trying to wrap her mind around since it seemed, to her anyway, just a bit odd. She didn't really feel older than Neo, maybe because she physically wasn't but Pixie wasn't entirely sure. There had to be a reason, but she hadn't figured out what that reason was yet.

By the time Neo reached the top of the ladder--- he was fast but not as fast as Pixie who zipped up the ladder like some kind of small, darkly furred monkey ---Pixie was leaning against the far wall looking as if she was holding herself in check. She was standing there but it seemed, to Neo, that the air around her was crackling with an excess of energy.

Pixie had been fairly bouncing with energy the entire way through the maze. Yet another thing that struck Neo as a bit strange. Pixie was, usually, extremely restrained when it came to how he saw her on a daily basis. The nineteen year old wasn't one for large displays or emotional outbursts. If anything, she was a bit fidgety on the ship--- not liking to stay in one place for very long, especially if a crowd had gathered ---but never before had she seemed this energetic to him. Neo had almost decided that Pixie didn't have the ability to be this kind of energetic in her. She was just one of those sedate, quiet kinds of people.

Again, and not for the last time he figured, Neo wondered what Pixie had been before getting out of the Matrix. He couldn't figure out just what sort of kid she'd been before her freeing but, then again, Neo wasn't sure he knew many fifteen year olds to being with to compare so the point was moot.

"It's empty,' Pixie pointed out, stating the obvious and sounding slightly upset about that fact. "No ninjas, no puzzles no nothing. It's just a hallway."

Looking up and down the hallway he'd just climbed into, Neo saw that Pixie was right. There was absolutely nothing in the hallway. It was just an empty expanse with another ladder on the far end. He figured that, at least, there'd be a trap or something protecting the ladder since that seemed to be how this game went.

"What's going on here?" Neo asked, though he wasn't entirely sure the young woman had an answer for him this time.

"A brief reprise," Pixie, softly, commented, slumping down onto the floor and inspecting the wound in her arm again.

It didn't hurt and it wasn't, really, open but it was red, raw, and, frankly, ugly to look at. Pixie poked at it with her left hand--- She was a righty. Wheeler was a lefty which was a source of amusement for the two of them and for their friends. ---and winced as it sent an achy sort of feeling up and down her limb. The pain was paralyzing, she could still use her arm, but it was there and it was annoying her. Running into lasers was something she rarely did since it was, slightly on the stupid side and she tried to avoid that side of things at all costs.

Pixie assumed the burn mark was probably going to scar but those came with the territory. Besides, she knew not many people would see it anyway. It would fade into her skin because she was pale. Well, there was that and the fact Pixie, unlike her friends, didn't really wear tank tops when she was home. It was rather rare to see her without a baggy sweater on even if it was warm in Zion. It was a comfort thing for her instead of a fashion thing. Not that there was fashion in Zion but the idea seemed to be about the same.

"What do you mean?" Neo asked, sitting against the wall across from Pixie.

"Tank, when he makes these games, always programs a break right before the boss. I guess it's a break so we can get ourselves together before we have a big fight on our hands. You know, tend to our injuries and stuff like that even though we don't get the chance to do that in the Matrix," Pixie answered with a shrug. "At least, that's what I figure."

Pixie had always figured it was like the pause in a video game where there'd be a save point or something so the characters could continue their journey from just before the boss fight if they lost to said boss. It was a place to be healed by a white mage, change weapons or spells, and try to formulate a plan for what was to come next.

Since this wasn't an exact copy of the role playing games she remembered, Pixie always assumed Tank gave them pause to fix their injuries and to imagine what was to come next. Of course, the latter was probably the worst, all things considered. Her imagination could come up with beasties and scenarios that always seemed to be just a bit worse than what was on the other side of the door or at the top of the ladder and through the door.

Taking a moment, though it was entirely unnecessary given that they were in a virtual world, Pixie pushed herself up into a bridge and walked her hands into her feet as close as they would go. Even in the Construct her back made the always extremely satisfying sound of someone walking on dried twigs as it cracked. Though she wasn't exactly fond of stretching--- Pixie had an issue with being told to stretch before sparring. She'd do it but it didn't mean she had to like it. ---Pixie did enjoy randomly cracking her back and hips on her own.

There was just something comfortable and satisfying about the sound it made as the fluid filled spaces between her vertebra "cracked". Technically, it was thought that the wonderfully satisfying sound came from cavitation within the joints of her back. Small vacuums formed in the synovial fluid--- the fluid that cushioned the joints ---and the cracking sounds came when they collapsed. Whatever the case, Pixie quiet enjoyed the sound and the way it made her back feel.

Springing up and over herself, flipping back onto her feet, Pixie caught Neo gawking at her. Her elven featured face turned a pale shade of pink and she sat back down on the stone ground. Instead of sitting Indian style, she pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her head she propped on her green covered knees. Though it was a strange looking position, it was the one she was most comfortable in.

"How do you do that?" Neo asked, curiously.

"Do what? The acrobatics stuff?" Pixie wanted to know, thinking that she might not be the best person to explain such things to Neo but believing it was rude of her not to answer.

When Neo nodded, Pixie, after some thought, answered, "Honestly, I'm a freak. We're all freaks really but we're all good freaks so I guess that makes it alright for me to say it. See, I can bend like pretzel in here--- More so than I can when I'm outside of the Construct ---and you have neural kinetics that are so far off the charts that I think I'm going to have to either resort to making a new chart or revising the old one which won't be fun no matter how you look at it. At any rate, every one of us has some sort of special skill, I guess you could call it, because we're freaks."

"What?" Neo blurted, unsure where Pixie was going with what she was saying.

Pixie didn't exactly seem like the type just too outright call someone a "freak." Not that Neo was one hundred percent sure of anything about anyone in this world he now called home. Still Pixie was apologizing to him for everything she thought she did wrong so her calling him a "freak' didn't exactly seem like something she'd do. It didn't fit the picture she was presenting him with.

"I guess 'freak' isn't exactly the nicest word to use but that's what the Science Council in Zion calls us so that's the word all us science students were taught to use. I guess they could have used the word "mutant" but we're genetically about the same as any natural born individual. I mean, there's the natural variance that exists in all large populations but that's it. Other than that and the plugs, we're just like everyone else. I guess "freak' was just the only other word they could think of," Pixie explained. "Even though it does have a lot of negative connotations to it."

"So...how did I become a freak?" the older male wanted to know.

Pixie bit her lower lip--- Again, a habit she was trying very hard to break but she couldn't help herself. It was something she did unconsciously when she got lost within the maze of her own mind. ---and thought for a moment. Maybe there was another purpose as to why she was allowed to come into this program with Neo. Everyone seemed to have something to teach Neo and Pixie was starting to think this was what she had to teach Neo…since she had little else to teach, she figured.

Why it fell to her to try and explain this to Neo was a bit beyond Pixie. She wasn't exactly the best storyteller on the ship. That honor fell to Morpheus and the way he talked about things. He just had one of those voices that made you want to listen to what he had to say. Pixie, who didn't even really like talking out loud, was almost sure her telling Neo this story, so to speak, was either going to bore or confuse him. Maybe a little of both, since it had both those reactions on her science class back in her days in the Academy.

Truthfully, she found it interesting but, as her friend Aisling often pointed out, she was strange and found strange things interesting. Pixie knew she should have taken offense to that but didn't. It was just how Aisling was. She didn't mean to be unkind. She was just sort of…gruff…sometimes.

"Well...how can I explain this without making both of us uncomfortable...you know that people in the Matrix can't....you know....make babies. We're not sure how the Matrix creates new life really, whether it's through cloning or something else like that but we do know that the people still plugged into the Matrix never touch so they can't do....what we all know to be necessary to continue the species, so to speak," Pixie explained.

With a bright red face and looking at the tips of her boots--- Yes, she was easily embarrassed and, no, there was nothing she could do about it. Another fact Aisling and her brother found wildly amusing about Pixie. ----Pixie added, "Hypothetically, if we're all clones then we should all be just like the person we were cloned from since the Science Council figures the machines have cloning down to an exact art if this is what they're actually doing. We all should be perfect copies of whomever the first…us, I guess…was if cloning is what the machines are doing."

"If that's true, then how'd we get to be freaks?" Neo asked, curious as to where this little science lesson was going.

"There are a lot of theories floating around in the Science Council's chambers. Most of the biggest brains in Zion that are on the Science Council think that there's something going on in the children being created by the Matrix or, if you want to put it this way because it's easier to swallow, being born inside the Matrix. It's like there's some kind of mass mutation going on in there. The kids are changing in ways the Matrix has never predicted, gaining powers over the Matrix," Pixie answered. "They start to become like us, able to learn to do things within the Matrix like we do. They're no longer docile little clones or whatever it is they actually are."

Neo looked at the medic-in-training thoughtfully for a moment. Apparently, she wasn't just sent into the program with him to train. For some reason, she's also been sent in to give him some kind of history lesson or something that sounded very much like one. Something related to science, since that seemed to be part of Pixie's field of study, but it was still a history lesson. The problem was that this lesson was leaving him with more questions than answers though that appeared to a running theme when it came to lessons taught by Morpheus and his crew.

"So, what happens next? Everyone becomes freaks like us and overthrow the Matrix?" Neo broached, asking the first few questions that were on his mind.

Pixie shrugged and pointed out, "That's highly unlikely as things stand right now. You did the agent training program, right?"

After Neo nodded, assuring her that he'd gone through that program, Pixie continued, "That's part of their system for keeping people like us quiet. Anyone who gets too close to finding the truth, the Matrix uses the Agents to make sure they don't get any closer. That's why we're so dangerous. The Agents make the people living in the Matrix dependent on the system but we're not because we're outside of it. That sort of upsets them."

"Mind you," the medic-in-training added. "The Matrix doesn't like the fact that we're stealing their batteries. That's why they're trying to do everything in their power to stop us. Since we're freaks on the loose…but that's all supposed to change when the One comes. That's a whole other story though."

Neo was about to add his own comment, especially related to her offhanded remark about the One, when Pixie shrugged and pointed out, 'At least that's what I've been taught in my classes at the Academy. I could be remembering things incorrectly plus this is all speculation on the part of the Science Council. There's still a lot of stuff they don't know about because the Machines aren't exactly keen on sharing their secrets with us."

Though Pixie's little tale had left Neo with plenty of questions, her little side comment--- depreciating herself and what she, obviously, knew well. ---left him with a few more. This Zion place that everyone spoke about was something of a mystery to Neo. He'd heard about it but no one ever told him any of the particulars. Then again, he hadn't really felt the need to ask them about it since he had many more pressing questions.

Pixie, who was willing to share information with him at the moment, had mentioned two things about Zion that no one else on the crew had mentioned. It had done nothing more than to further his curiosity about the last human civilization on earth.

"What Academy?" Neo wanted to know

"The Academy's sort of like school," Pixie responded, switching from sitting curled up in a ball to lying on her stomach, knees and shins pressed against the wall, her head propped up on her hands. "It's where kids--- Zion born and Pod born ---go to learn before they're able to get jobs. I went there after I was freed and then I was chosen to work on this ship when I turned eighteen."

With a bit of a grin--- Save for one or two occasions, almost always related to numbers or her math classes, Pixie had actually enjoyed going to the Academy ---she added, "It's a combination of book learning and having things uploaded into your head. My friend Chian, who works on this ship called the _Logos_, took most of her classes as the uploaded variety because she was freed when she was older and she wanted to work right away. Those classes cause some friction, though, between the Zion Borns and the Pod Borns but it's normal teenage stuff I guess and everyone grows out of it."

"And the Science Council is?" Neo broached, bringing up the second question Pixie's little speech had elicited.

Pixie giggled--- A sound Neo thought was incredibly odd coming out of Pixie because she seemed always appeared to be serious about things. ---and explained, "The Science Council, officially, oversees all scientific and medical work done in Zion. Since Zion's underground and all, they work on keeping the place up and running and take care of new advances in what could creatively be called farming, and animal husbandry. Medical care too."

As before, Pixie's words left him with more questions than answers. Sure it explained a few things but it left more questions for Neo to have answered. He wasn't sure if he had any right to ask any more questions of the young woman sitting on the floor with him. She'd already explained quite a bit to him, even if it left him with more questions than answers.


	10. What's my Age Again?

AN: Heya everyone! Well, it's cold here in the Big Frozen Apple but my thoughts are someplace around Port Saint Lucie, Florida. That's where my New York Mets have their spring training complex and it's a week until Spring Training. I'm hoping that a new stadium brings some new luck to the team. The past two seasons have been nothing short of painful for all us Mets fans. I mean like wrecking the entire season on the last game painful…and, of course, the games had to be on Sundays so I was there to watch my poor team explode. Maybe a new field will fix that bad mojo or something. I don't know. Us baseball fans are a superstitious lot. Sorry about the delay, those out there still reading this mess of a story, but I had another idea crawl into my head and it wouldn't go away until I typed it out. I may post it but it's about Pixie's past…her way pre-Pixie past. Anyway, thanks to everyone still reading this story. I really appreciate it. Please feel free to leave me a review…good, bad, or indifferent.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"My friends say I should act my age  
What's my age again?  
What's my age again?..." (From "What's my Age Again?" by Blink 182)

Still lying on her stomach, knowing full well that her Real World body would show bruises from the way she was laying, Pixie pointed out, "You still look like you want to ask me something? It's alright if you have more questions."

"It just seems like every time I think I have this place figured out, ten more questions pop up and I'm confused again," Neo stated, looking sort of sheepish about admitting that fact.

Neo found it strange to be admitting that fact to the young woman he was sitting with. Part of it was because she was physically younger than Neo--- Matrix age wise, anyway ---and part of it was because Pixie just seemed to be particularly shy and reserved. She seemed like the type to keep to herself but not because she was unfriendly. It was more because that was how she liked it. She was shy and keeping to herself was her way of dealing with that shyness.

Compounding that were the half stories about Pixie having some kind of history with Hawk and her silence being part of her way of dealing with him. Cypher, who'd told most of the stories usually when Pixie was within earshot, had made the history sound racy but Neo wasn't sure. The young woman sitting before him didn't exactly seem like the racy type. Besides, he'd also heard half stories about her having a boyfriend of some kind in Zion. A boy who wasn't Hawk.

Stories aside, this was the first time, as far as Neo could recall, that he'd heard Pixie say more than two or three words to him. Putting her in her element however, seemed make her more comfortable. It made things easier for her to talk to him. Why was beyond Neo but he did appreciate her answering his questions. Even if he did feel a bit silly asking them of someone as young as Pixie.

"It's alright to have questions here, Neo," Pixie said, her tone older but the smile she was wearing very childlike. "Everyone does. This place is kind of confusing for people because it's really unlike the world we thought we lived in. I can imagine--- and I apologize if I offend you by saying this ---that it's more disconcerting for you because you're older than the normal person we unplug."

Pixie explanation, actually made a strange sort of sense to Neo. He'd lived in the Matrix far longer than anyway they'd--- the others on the ship, if the stories he'd heard were to be believed. ---had the occasion to free. As a matter of fact, that was one of the first things Mouse, the most talkative of the three rookies had made it a point to tell Neo he was the oldest person he'd ever heard of being freed.

"Morpheus said that there were rules about freeing people my age. Something about it being hard because the mind can't let go. Whatever that means," Neo repeated, still watching Pixie and, in the back of his mind, wondering just what she'd be before she'd come out of the Matrix.

There was just something very strange about Pixie. He might have ignored it, the strange feeling, if it was just one thing about the young woman. He might have just chalked it up to their surroundings of the fact he found most things in the Real World strange and different when compared to his life in the Matrix.

Where Pixie was concerned, though, there were many things that Neo was starting to see as strange. Maybe not so much strange but different and that was what was confusing him about her. Pixie was definitely over eighteen--- She had to be according to Trinity eighteen was the minimum age for working for the resistance_._ ---but she didn't look the part. Pixie looked like a girl maybe four or five years younger than her given age and, at the moment, was acting like it. On the tin can they all called home, though, it was like there was another Pixie living there. She was quiet and serious, very adult like for a nineteen year old and very unlike the teenagers he remembered from the Matrix.

It just seemed like an odd combination to Neo. After all, teenagers in the Matrix--- in his limited experience seeing them and being one, himself ---weren't exactly the most serious of people. At nineteen, Neo vaguely remembered college parties and going to said parties, even if he didn't really want to just because his roommates dragged him. There weren't people like Pixie at those parties, Neo was fairly certain of that much.

"Captain Morpheus has never been fond of rules. At least that's what I heard in Zion and around the ship. I know he bent one of them to get me on here, I think, as a matter of fact," Pixie brought up. "But it wasn't as big as the one he broke to get you out. The rule he broke to get you out was one of the big ones."

"What?" Neo blurted, feeling more than a little foolish since he felt like he was repeating himself whenever someone mentioned something new about the world he found himself living in.

At least, it seemed like he was saying the same thing over and over. Neo found that he had a great many questions about the Real World and Pixie, who was older than he in Real World years, was brimming with answers to his questions. For some odd reason--- maybe it was the fact that Pixie really did seem like a young girl rather than a young woman, making her less intimidating that way ---Pixie was just easier to talk to. At least, in this program she was. On the ship, where she was quiet and serious and kept to herself, things might have been more than a little different.

The medic-in-training gave Neo what she thought was a friendly smile and shifted her position so she was a bit more comfortable, relatively speaking. Pixie knew that lying on her stomach wasn't the best way for her to lie but she did it anyway because it was comfortable to her. She knew she was going to have bruises on her hips both here and in the Real World.

That was just the way things were for her, she figured. Where her female friends--- Even the Pod Born ones like Ngaio and Chian ---had filled out and actually looked female, Pixie found herself stuck someplace in between. She wasn't a girl, according to her age, but she didn't look entirely like a grown woman either. Something had happened, thanks to the illness that had plagued her in the Matrix and had nearly killed her, that had stunted her secondary development. Even with synthetic hormones once she'd been freed, Pixie seemed to be stuck in a middling state…she was female but someplace between girl and woman.

"I turned eighteen the day commissions for ships were given out and Commander Lock--- He's the guy in charge of the fleet. Most of us call him 'Deadbolt' behind his back. ---wasn't keen on allowing me to be put into the pool of people eligible for jobs because I wasn't eighteen before commissions were being given out. I had a teacher and a member of the Zion Council convince him to put me in the pool of names. Still, a lot of people don't want to cross Deadbolt so there was more than a small chance, I'd get left behind anyway. Morpheus, for whatever reason he had, decided to take me on has his medic-in-training," Pixie explained. "It's not a huge bending of the rules but it's bending enough I guess. It got me a job where other captains might not have done that, especially for someone like me."

With a very small, apologetic smile--- Pixie was starting to think she was boring Neo with her inane babblings about everything and anything he asked about. ---she continued, "What Morpheus told you is true. We're not supposed to free minds once they get past a certain age. Older minds get so use to living in the Matrix that they're completely and totally dependent on the network. That makes it hard to let go of it all and come to terms with what reality actually is."

"How'd you do it?" Neo wanted to know, curious as to how Pixie's mind worked.

"Do what?" Pixie responded, cocking her head to one side and giving Neo a sidelong glance.

The young woman knew her question could have been taken in one of two ways. Either she was being a giant pain in the rear end by forcing Neo to spell out what he want or she actually had no idea what he was asking her about. If she had no idea, it was necessary for Neo to spell out what he wanted to know from her so the conversation could continue.

Truthfully, though, Pixie was more than a little unsure of what Neo was asking her about. She had something like an idea but she wasn't sure if her idea was right. Who was to say she and Neo were thinking along the same lines and not getting their lines crossed?

Pixie didn't want to confuse Neo any further. As it was, she was a convinced that she was doing irreparable damage to Neo by answering his questions. Maybe, hopefully, someone would be able to undo all the damage she thought she was doing to him. There had to be someone else on the ship--- maybe Trinity or Morpheus ---who could fix the mistakes she thought she was making.

"Deal with the change over form the Matrix to this place," Neo explained, gesturing to the area around him. "Alright, maybe not this place but you know what I mean, right?"

Pixie nodded, understanding what Neo was getting at, and answered, "I had just turned fifteen years old when I was freed and I wasn't exactly pleased with how things were for me in the Matrix. Getting out of the Matrix, for me anyway, was actually a pleasant experience. The reality I knew was kind of ugly so, compared to this, this is great. I actually feel like I belong here."

The young woman didn't want to go into any more detail than she had to when it came to her past. Everyone had their secrets in the Real World, stories about their past that they didn't share. It was a very big deal to share your Matrix name--- as opposed to your hacker name which was, basically, one's given name once they got out---with someone and talk of one's past wasn't exactly everyday conversation.

Pixie could count on one hand the people who knew the truth about her Matrix past and the name she'd been born with. If she didn't count Morpheus and the others who'd watched her in the Matrix and had been present at her freeing, she was almost sure it was three people.

There was Rain and Torrent, the family that had taken her in after her freeing, because Pixie felt they deserved to know. After all, they were kind enough to take her in and share their home with her. Pixie figured the least she could share with them was the story of who she'd been before her freeing. They'd get to know things that others in Zion probably would never know.

The other person who knew about her Matrix life, along with her Matrix name, was Wheeler. She'd confided just about everything--- There were a few things she kept to herself because she still wanted a few secrets. That and the fact there were just some things about her past she really didn't want to share. ---about her past to a certain scruffy haired young man from Texas. Though he knew her given name, Wheeler was good enough to never slip up and call her by it.

He, like everyone else, just called her "Pix." It was strange because Pixie had, at first, disliked anyone shortening her already short hacker's alias. She and Hawk were in an almost constant verbal battle, back in their shared Matrix days and even now on the ship when he wanted to mess with her head, about him calling her "Pixie Sticks." Wheeler's nickname for her, though, hadn't bothered her and had become a variant on her Real World name. Everyone except Morpheus called her "Pix."

Though Neo was new in the Real World, he had a funny feeling that he shouldn't press the young woman any further than he already had. Pixie looked, physically, uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than she'd looked during their entire duration in this program and that was saying a lot. While facing ninjas, traps, and puzzle, Pixie had been bouncing on the balls of her feet trying to contain her excitement or enthusiasm. At the moment, though, the young woman sitting across from him seemed to be glancing around as if she was trying to find the fastest way out of the conversation.

"Can I ask you one more question?" Neo broached. "This one you don't really have to answer. I appreciate all your answers, though. I think this was the most I've ever heard you say in one day."

Pixie's face colored bright red, despite the fact she knew Neo was just stating facts. Pixie rarely spoke on the ship she called home. She kept to herself most of the time because that was just how she was. She was just quiet that way. When she did speak, it was usually just a few carefully chosen words about whatever the topic at hand was and then it was back to her self-imposed silence.

Though she didn't like to talk, Pixie was not entirely unfriendly towards others. Many people--- mostly her friends back in Zion ---had taken Pixie's silence to mean that she was one of those people who was really good at listening and open to being talked to if they needed an ear to bend. Her friends, though it was more Ngaio and Aisling than it was Wheeler and Adoh, would talk to her about anything and everything, speaking about their worries, fears, and problems to the quiet girl with the long hair. Sometimes Pixie offered her advice to them but, most of the time, they'd feel better just by her listening.

It was like Chian, another of Pixie's friends though she was older than Pixie by several years, had told her once upon a time. Sometimes things were better once they got into the open air. Keeping them bottled up inside just made things worse.

The only one who ever found her habitual listening rather than speaking annoying, despite the fact she took advantage of it from time to time, was Aisling. She couldn't understand just how Pixie made it through a conversation with someone without speaking. Aisling, it seemed, had many opinions and had no issues with interjecting them into conversations whenever she saw the need to. The fact Pixie could just listen without speaking for long stretches of time confused her to no bitter end.

"You can ask me anything you want. I asked a lot of questions when I first got out of the Matrix. Only I asked them after I was adopted and not just after I was freed. I think we all have a lot of questions when we first get out, though. It's alright if you want to ask me something else, even though you already did ask me a question," Pixie pointed out, a rather wicked grin dancing across her face.

The grin was what most termed her "pixie smile." It was a mischievous, trouble filled sort of look that danced across her elven featured face when she thought of something that amused her or posed a though that had the potential to confuse another person. While her other friends--- and many of the individuals she worked with ---found the smile troubling, Wheeler found it endearing.

At least, he said he found it endearing. It was the smile, he pointed out, that showed why she had her name. It was the smile that showed just what went on in her head, behind the quiet exterior she showed the Real World. Pixie was, like her name indicated, a whole mess of trouble…just wrapped up in a soft, unsuspecting, quiet exterior.

Just the thought of Wheeler threatened to strengthen the blush that was already staining Pixie's cheeks a bright crimson. It took a physical effort for her to control the fact she blushed so easily, especially if she was thinking of Wheeler. She wasn't sure if she was actually having any luck in that department but she figured the effort had to count for something.

Neo, for a moment, was confused by Pixie's little quipped statement. Then a small grin spread out on his face as understanding set in. Technically, he'd already asked a question, asking her if he "can" ask another question.

The young woman was pointing that fact out to him in a very subtle way and telling him it was alright to ask another. Again, he wondered just what Pixie had been before her freeing. Perhaps some kind of English wiz who stumbled upon the idea of the Matrix while researching for a paper for her high school, maybe.

"Is is considered bad, I guess, to ask people where they came from?" Neo asked.

"What makes you want to know?" Pixie countered more curious than accusing.

"You looked uncomfortable when I ask what you were before you came here," Neo answered, feeling a bit sheepish for admitting such a fact. "Like you do on the ship whenever Hawk corners you to talk."

Pixie, for her part, gave Neo a half-smile and nodded her head, stating, "It's sort of a taboo, in a way. You're not, technically, supposed to ask where someone came from unless you're really close with the other person and even then it's sketchy. It depends, I guess, on how you think of the Matrix past you have."

Getting up and stretching her black covered arms over her head, Pixie pointed out, "That's another story for another day, though. We should probably tackle the boss and get out of here before everyone starts to worry that we're lost or hurt or something."

Neo nodded, standing up from the ground where he'd been sitting. There was actually no telling just how long he and Pixie had been in the program together. It wasn't like there was a timer in the corner or anything of the sort. The older male could only assume it had been a long time. Longer still for him because he'd be in the program before Pixie wandered in and brought her puzzles with her.

"I feel like I should thank you for the history lesson," Neo commented as the pair jogged over to the game's final ladder. "Even if you did call me a freak."

Pixie, stepping away from the ladder she'd been heading up, turned to face Neo and gave him what she thought was her friendliest smile. The young woman knew she lacked the imposing aura many who worked in the Resistance had. She'd gone into the Matrix and had seen the way those she worked with--- maybe with the exceptions being Hawk and Mouse despite what Hawk thought --were able to get the individuals around them to move out of their way with just a simple, pointed glare.

The medic-in-training knew that never, in a million years, would she be able to affect such a look. She'd tried, of course, but it seemed that her efforts were doomed for failure. It was just a look Pixie was unable to achieve on her own. There was just something about the way her face was shaped--- since it couldn't be in her eyes. Those were covered by the mirrored lenses of her sunglasses ---or the way she carried herself that prevented it from happening. She just wasn't a tough or imposing person.

Her friends, the ones in Zion, had pointed out that it was most likely the fact she just oozed this sort of curious, quiet energy. She wasn't physically imposing--- with her long hair and her short, thin stature ---and she just didn't have a mean air about her. Aisling, who had opinions on everything, had said that she didn't have to even look at people for them to know she was just shy. There was just nothing tough about a person who was shy. Such people were just, well, shy.

"It's not a problem," Pixie answered, one of her hands fooling around with the braid behind her back. "I'm just glad I could help. I'm sorry if I confused you or anything. I really didn't mean to do that."

Neo shook his head and started up the ladder after Pixie, who was fairly skittering up the rusted metal structure. It was high time the two of them faced the boss in this little dungeon. That and hope that this whole role playing game scenario didn't end with a turn based boss fight. He'd never liked those, the few times he'd played role playing games in the Matrix. Nothing good could ever come of turn based games.


	11. Renegades of Funk

AN: I apologize for the fact this story's been kind of slow going. I don't know why but doing edits on this has taken forever. Mostly because I don't really like to edit but I know I have to just to fix spelling mistakes. Well, there's that and the fact I keep adding more than taking out. Either way, I still apologize to anyone out there still reading this for the slowness of this short bit of a story. If it's any consolation, there's only two parts of this story left. Then it's back to the main story of Pixie's misadventures. Well, more misadventures anyway. She does seem to find herself in an awful lot of trouble a lot of the time. To anyone still reading this mess, thank you very much for sticking with me and taking the time out to read my story! You're the best! Please, let me know what you're thinking…leave a review, good, bad or indifferent!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"We're the renegades, we're the people  
With our own philosophies  
We change the course of history  
Everyday people like you and me…" (From "Renegades of Funk" by Rage Against the Machine)

Pixie shimmied backwards and away from the ladder, trying to give Neo space in which to climb up and into the room she was already standing in. The room, itself, was rather tiny. It was nothing more than a round room with a landing for the ladder and a very large door set across from where one climbed up the ladder.

The large door with massive scorpions painted on the stained wood, the young woman assumed, led to the arena where the boss battle was supposed to take place. The room she was standing in, trying to make herself as small as possible so Neo had space and didn't go tumbling down the ladder, was just an antechamber for what she guessed was probably a larger room. Perhaps an arena style space in which a proper fight could take place.

Pixie knew that there was good enough reason for her to open the door and begin the boss fight without Neo. She was, technically speaking, the more experienced of the two and could start begin a fight on her own. If the boss wasn't too challenging, odds were that she might even be able to finish the fight without Neo's involvement.

Still, she waited as Neo climbed up the ladder and found himself a spot against the wall in the room Pixie had be standing in. To the young woman, it just didn't seem right to take on the final part of this little program without his help. After all, she and Neo had battled through puzzles, ninjas, and a rather strange take on a sword fight in order to get to the boss of the dungeon. It just didn't feel right, to Pixie, to leave Neo out of the final fight of the game.

The two of them had started her puzzle ridden part of the maze together, and that's how the maze was going to be finished. Besides, Pixie had never exactly been comfortable taking on bosses alone. It was just smarter--- more logical even ---to have back up when facing a challenge like that. Normally, in spars, Pixie was very fond of playing fair and making sure her fights were always one on one, never two against one unless that was part of the training session. In this case, going up against a potentially stronger entity, two against one was the smarter choice. It was the safer choice, as well.

"Small room," Neo noted, as he stood against the wall opposite Pixie's. "I'm guessing the boss is through those doors."

With a nod of her head--- Pixie's hair was more than a little askew but most of it was still in its long, tight braid. ---she added, "Yup, through those doors. We just have to beat whatever's waiting for us on the other side and get out of here. Hopefully, it won't be a case of easier said than done."

Walking around the small room to reach where Pixie was standing, Neo said to the young woman, "C'mon, Pix, let's go."

Pixie, who was still playing the uncomfortable role of leader, pushed on the center of the large doors. The doors swung open, in a rather dramatic fashion though Pixie didn't mean for things to happen in that way, to reveal a round room with rising bleacher style seats. The seats were empty at the moment earning a relieved sigh from Pixie. Fighting an arena full of ninjas wouldn't have been the easiest of challenges, especially given that it was just her and Neo. If there had been more of them, well, fighting a room full of ninja might have been feasible. The way things stood, though, fighting a room full of ninjas was something Pixie and Neo could not do alone, even if Neo held the potential of being "the One."

An old looking man stood in the center of the room, his back to the door. He was clad in black with an angry looking scorpion, like the ones that had been painted on the doors, on his back. Thinking back, Pixie realized that many of the enemy ninjas had a scorpion someplace on their clothing. A silly little touch to the game but one she appreciated since it made the idea of "us versus them" a bit more real.

The young woman felt more than saw Neo get ready to attack the old man. It made sense to get a jump on the old man, Pixie fully understood that. His back was turned and his arms hung loosely at his sides. He didn't appear to have heard the doors swing open nor the sound of booted feet on the stone floor behind him. It made the old man a perfect target for the pair to attack.

As a matter of fact, it was all too perfect. That was Pixie's snap assessment of the situation anyway. It was too easy and too perfect for the old man to be standing unaware and for their victory to result from that fact.

The young woman might not have been the most experienced warrior in the Resistance and never hid that fact from anyone. Pixie knew a fair amount about fighting but was also open about the fact that there were plenty of people who knew more than she did. After all, she'd only been with the Resistance about a year. That was a paltry amount of time compared to the years served by not only those she worked with but the individuals her friends worked with as well.

Still, there was something about this situation that set Pixie's nerves on edge. Something about the whole thing felt too contrived, too set up. Just an overall feeling that made Pixie want to be wary, rather than press the obvious advantage. She might have called it instinct but Pixie wasn't sure she'd developed those sorts of instincts yet either.

"No..." she whispered, her voice nothing more than a low hiss so as to not alert their enemy. "Something's not right here. I don't think we can attack."

Neo, about to breeze past the young woman and take the easy advantage, found himself halted by the old man. He'd turned, showing the pair a wizened face and a battle scared chest. The fact there was an almost grandfatherly look to his visage, turned Pixie's feeling of caution up one more notch. She knew appearances could be deceiving--- Her own appearance was case in point. It had deceived many a person within the confines of the Matrix. ---and had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her that this man was dangerous, was someone to be feared and someone who would not have easily fallen to an attack from behind.

"It would do you well to listen to the girl, my eager friend," the old man said, his voice showing both wisdom, age, and the barest hint of taunting. "I wouldn't want you getting hurt...unnecessarily."

Taking in the pair standing before him, the old man continued, "I should commend the two of you for getting through this maze but this is where your journey ends. I cannot let you claim victory, I am sorry."

"What if we insist?" Pixie asked, putting her hands on her hips and playing along with the game, so to speak.

The game might have been programmed but it also had the ability to adapt. Not fighting, just giving up in the middle of the game, would give results that were drastically different from the ones given if fighting--- which moved the game along ---was done. Besides, sometimes it was more fun to just play along with the script. It might have been predictable but, at least, it made the game a bit more interesting.

"Then I will be forced to stop you," the old man, calmly, informed the pair. "I cannot allow you to taste victory this day."

He stepped back, taking a stance that Pixie recognized but couldn't properly name at the moment. The whole idea that she--- once unable to do anything remotely resembling physical exertion because of a sickness she hadn't asked for and a death she almost couldn't escape. ---even knew black belt level martial arts still astounded Pixie. She was still working on her own technique as far as hand to hand fighting was concerned but knowing how to do it amazed her still. It would probably still amaze her, as many things in the Real World tended to do.

She took one step backwards, facing sideways and putting her hands in a double handed block stance. It was a simple stance but it served its purpose. One hand was up near her face and the other near her midsection. Both were prepared for an attack or for defense, depending on the situation.

Though Hawk and Mouse preferred more elaborate stances Pixie had found this one worked best for her. Sure it was simple but, sometimes, there was no need to be fancy. Simple often worked just as well. Besides, it was multi-purpose and that made it all the more valuable to her. Not naturally aggressive, Pixie enjoyed the fact her stance of choice allowed for defense and not just offense. She could always protect instead of attack.

Neo stepped to Pixie's side--- a move that made sense because he would be of little help fighting behind her ---and took his own stance. He, like the male rookies Pixie was sometimes lumped together with, seemed to prefer something with a bit more flair to it. The young woman guessed that need for a flair was a "boy's thing" since she wasn't one for flair at all.

Either that or it was just a Pixie thing, the whole being without flair thing. The elven featured girl wasn't entirely sure and she knew that the current moment wasn't the best one to think about it. She'd have plenty of time to muse about flair and her seeming lack thereof later in the quiet of her own room or during her turn on watch. That was when she did all her best thinking.

There was an uncomfortable air about the virtual space as Pixie and Neo waited for the old man to attack while the programmed ninja, the boss of the game, did the same. With a placid expression on his wizened face, he waited for the mismatched pair to launch their attack. Pixie was never one to attack first--- She did but only if she was pressed into doing so. ---and the cold feeling in her blood keeping her rooted to the spot. She stood back, just waiting and watching for something to happen, trying not to crack under the tension that filled the space between all of them.

Neo attacked first, bringing the fight to the programmed ninja and shattering the tension like a mirror being smashed by rocks. The program's boss easily and almost effortlessly sent Neo flying, throwing the older male over his shoulder. He skidded for a distance on one knee, opening a wide hole in the left leg of the pants he was wearing. A displeased expression crossed over Neo's face as he landed but Pixie wasn't sure why. Someone had to make the first move and Pixie wanted to applaud Neo for doing so. It took guts to make a move against an unknown and dangerous entity instead of stupidity.

"Will you be coming after me next, child?" the programmed boss stated, turning his attention to Pixie who still stood in place.

A thoughtful look crossed over Pixie's face, an idea forming in the recesses of her head. Neo had moved behind the ninja, taking an attacking stance again. It was obvious, to Pixie, that this old man was more than he seemed. He'd just thrown Neo across the room and it didn't seem like it took him any effort to do it. His age didn't seem to be a problem for him at all. Age was, after all, just an arbitrary number and, in a program, what a person looked like really didn't matter. The wizened old man that stood before her was far stronger than she expected.

Giving Neo a look, trying to get him to understand the plan she had swirling around in her head without actually shouting it across the room, Pixie's idea started to take shape in the virtual space around her. Maybe one person rushing this boss wasn't the smartest of ideas--- The old man was obviously strong and probably extremely agile despite his age. ---but two people, coming from two directions might work better. There was still the possibility that someone was going to get hurt, throw, or otherwise maimed but it was the best plan she had. Without taking some risks, there was no way the battle she found herself in was going to end.

Besides, Pixie figured nothing too bad was going to happen. This wasn't the Matrix by any stretch of her imagination. This was a program, a virtual space where Tank was controlling most, if not everything about it. If anyone got in too bad a way, Tank would do the "right" thing and pull them out. That gave Pixie a measure of comfort about, possibly, being thrown across the room or into a wall or into Neo, whatever the case might have been.

Taking a breath and letting it out, getting herself mentally and physically prepared to be hurt if she was the one getting attacking rather than doing the attacking, Pixie counted to three in her head. Looking across the expanse--- Mentally thanking Morpheus and Dozer for fixing her eyesight during her rebuilding so she could see better. ---Pixie gave Neo an almost imperceptible nod.

Keeping her guard up, just in case and just to be on the safe side, and moving as fast as she possibly could, Pixie rushed at the program's boss. At the same time but from the opposite side, Neo went through the same sort of motions. He ran and attacked the boss as well. Of course, their styles differed but the purpose was still very much the same. It was still a two pronged attack in an effort to take the virtual man down.

Much to Pixie's surprise, a few of her own blows--- mostly kicks because her punches weren't as powerful as her kicks ---landed on the boss's torso but the old man didn't seem the least bit stunned. He staggered a bit, sure, but he shook of more than a few of her kicks as if they were nothing. It seemed, to Pixie anyway, that her strikes were no more than glancing blows instead of ones she was putting all of her energy and strength into.

Before Pixie knew what was happening, she found herself standing on one leg. Peering around her own body--- not as hard as it would seem given that Pixie was double jointed ---the young woman found that one of her legs was being held over her own head by the game's boss. Looking a bit further, she saw that he'd also grabbed one of Neo's fists in his old, gnarled hand.

"Very smart, my friends, trying to use your numbers to your advantage, but I have seen that trick many times before," the old man informed Neo and Pixie, still holding them by hand and leg.

With more strength than Pixie guessed he had, the old man swung the pair into each other. Since she was standing on one leg, already off balance to begin with, Pixie brought her hands up to take some of the impact she knew her body was going to make when it crashed into Neo's. The force the old man created as he swung their bodies into one another made Pixie yelp. Almost immediately, her wrists began to sting and the bones ache as a result of the impact. Once the old man brought them together, he flung the pair aside as if they were nothing more than an odd looking Frisbee.

"You alright?" Neo asked as Pixie extracted one of her legs from under Neo's body.

Pixie didn't speak for a handful of moments. She scooted on her rear end away from Neo, paying more attention to her still stinging wrists than to the battle at hand or the person she was supposed to be fighting alongside her.

The last thing she needed was a pair of broken wrists. Sprains she could deal with, especially ones of the low grade variety, and work around but broken wrists, well, Pixie figured she'd get dumped off in Zion for healing and rehabilitation. Plus, future or not, Pixie was not keen on the idea of having her hands in casts until the bones set and healed. That would have made doing just about everything she was use to being able to do on her own very near impossible.

Twisting and flexing her hands, Pixie decided nothing was broken. Sprained or twisted probably but definitely not broken. They hurt like the devil but they were still useable. She could still fight, though she wasn't going to be anywhere close to her full strength.

Pushing herself to her feet, biting her lip as she did in order to keep the whimper in her throat right where it belonged, Pixie answered, "I'm good. Just a little stunned, that's all."

Neo looked skeptical but didn't say anything, much to Pixie's relief. She didn't want to have to take issue with him if he asked her to sit the rest of the fight out. She'd heard it from Hawk more times than she could count about her being a girl and her not being able to hold her own in a fight because of her gender. Pixie was well aware of her own weaknesses, both real and imagined, and she knew one thing from her study of all of them.

Being female was not one of her weaknesses. Pixie might not have been as big or as strong as some of the males she worked with but she could hold her own against them. She might not have been an equal to any of them, not yet anyway, but they couldn't dominate her anymore in a fight. She didn't need to sit out of any virtual, programmed fight because of some strange idea of gender roles that existed in the Matrix.

"What are we going to do?" Neo asked, deferring to Pixie since she was supposed to be the expert in this situation.

"In role playing games, the boss at the end of the dungeon has some kind of weakness," Pixie said, thinking aloud and warily watching the old man as he paced around the far side of the arena just in the periphery of her vision. "Maybe a weakness to a weapon or a specific elemental kind of attack. He has to have some kind of weakness...that's how these games always go."

"So we just have to find this guy's weakness. Is that what you're telling me?" Neo wanted to know, trying to boil down Pixie's almost stream of consciousness ramblings.

Pixie nodded and stated, "Exactly. We have to figure out this guy's weakness...without getting thrown around all that much."

Both standing now--- Pixie with her sword clenched painfully in her sore hands and Neo without a weapon--- the pair went for another attack. The young woman knew Neo was probably tempted to take the lead because he maybe believed that she was hurt and needed to be protected. Despite the fact, she'd told him that she was fine, of course.

Pixie just hoped Neo wouldn't give in to that temptation so they could fight on equal footing. The last thing the medic-in-training wanted was for Neo to get seriously hurt because he felt the silly need to protect her. Hurt or not, Pixie figured she was more than able to protect herself. Then again, she was also one of those people who didn't like to admit when she needed help either but that was neither here nor there at the moment. Her thickheadness, stemming from her past in the Matrix, was not the topic at hand.

With a weapon in hand, the dynamics of the battle changed. The old man kept trying to duck her sword and stay out of range of Neo's martial arts skills. Pixie knew that the programmed man could feel no pain or fear but she couldn't help but imagine that he was put on the defensive because he was now scared of the two of them and what they could do if they pressed their combined advantage.

No matter how untrue that was since there weren't very many people with reason to fear Pixie. Unless she got angry with them...but that was a different story all together. "Angry Pixie" was something spoken about in hushed whispers because she'd only shown up once and it had been because of Hawk.

An open palmed strike, thrusting upwards just a bit, on the part of the game's boss was enough to change the tide of battle once again. Since her wrists were already weakened, it was force enough to cause the sword she'd been wielding to tip out of Pixie's hands. It clattered to the floor, the noise just loud enough over the ongoing battle.

"Quick," Pixie blurted, biting back another yelping sort of sound. "Pick that up before he does!"

She danced backwards, trying to catch the old man's attention. The young woman didn't want their opponent picking up a sword and making their lives just that much more difficult. This old man was tough fighting barehanded. If he picked up her accidently dropped sword, Pixie didn't really want to have to think of what could happen then. As it was, Neo was looking a bit ragged around the edges and her wrists were starting to throb in an uncomfortable sort of way.

A fleeting smile crossed Pixie's face as Neo snagged the sword a moment before the boss's hands were on the ringed hilt. Her weapon--- well, their weapon now since she and Neo were sharing it ---was back in their court. Definitely a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. They needed all the advantages they could get when dealing with this monster of a boss.

Giving the sword to Neo, actually, seemed like a good idea as Pixie began to try and interject herself back into the battle. Her hands weren't as strong as they might have been because of what happened to her wrists. She wasn't able to keep a good grip on the blade nor could she bend her wrists this way and that in order to even use the weapon properly. Neo, whose hands were working just fine, could use and control the weapon better than she could at the moment.

With a sigh, knowing what her new role in the fight was, Pixie started trying to attract the boss' attention. Here and there she danced, keeping light on her feet and using what acrobatics she could given the fact her wrists didn't seem keen on supporting her body weight. Martial arts, mostly in the form of feigned punches and actual kicks, were thrown into the mix where ever and whenever Pixie could manage it. Anything was done just to keep the boss' attention focused on her and her alone.

The strange thing was that Pixie really didn't mind playing decoy. She was perfectly alright with acting as a human target while Neo tried to end their little game. Maybe in the Matrix she'd mind being a decoy--- not that she would say anything if she wound up playing someone's decoy in order to save a life ---but, at the moment, she was alright with it. It made Pixie feel better, feel useful, since she couldn't fight as was normally able to thanks to her wrists.

"Pix, duck," Neo shouted, the old man decided to try a roundhouse kick on the young woman in order to remove her as a distraction so he could focus solely on Neo.

Pixie, who'd twisted out of the way of another blow by the boss, hit the ground in a full straddle without even blinking. The old man's leg went over her head but his footing was off as he tried to avoid stepping on Pixie's outstretched leg. The young woman wasn't sure why she'd been afforded such an unusual courtesy--- After all, one took any advantage they could get during the heat of battle and causing another injury to an already injured opponent was something any good fighter new to do. ---but she knew that it was something to take advantage of. An opening of sorts and one that neither of them could, definitively, say when they'd get another like it.

As Pixie, wincing internally but keeping her face as blank as she could, tried to sweep the old man's other leg out from underneath him, Neo attacked with the sword Pixie had dropped. The old man, off balance now, couldn't counter both moves at once, making half hearted attempts at stopping both of them. His attempts, though, were not entirely successful as he wound up on the ground with Pixie's borrowed sword at his throat.

"I give up," the boss informed the pair as Pixie got herself to her feet--- Neo had offered her his free hand as help but she politely declined. Pulling her up would just aggravate her wrists further ---at Neo's side. "You both have bested me in combat."

"It was a good fight," Pixie stated, as Neo eased off of the game's boss. "We were lucky to have bested you."

The old man, the game's boss, turned into pixels, dissolving into the floor of the space around them. The pair were alone, Neo fiddling with Pixie's sword for the second time in so long and Pixie bending and flexing her still sore wrists. Neither of them knew what to do, what was to come next following the defeat of the game's boss. At least, they hoped that the old man was the boss and not some twisted form of mini-boss. Pixie was almost sure she'd cry if there was something else out there for them to fight.

"Is there anything else?" Pixie called, seemingly speaking to the air around them.

Well, what could be called air anyway. Neo wasn't sure they were actually breathing air and Morpheus had never really explained if they were actually breathing in the programs or they were breathing on the ship and that supplemented their breathing in the programs. The older man was almost sure the young woman--- who'd been calling to Tank or whoever else was out there acting as Operator. ---had her own ideas or, at the very least, ideas from the Science Council she'd been telling him about.

"We're pulling you guys out now," Tanks called, a slight laugh in his voice, "You did well the two of you. Very impressive."


	12. The Remedy

AN: Um…hiya! Anyone who's still reading this little mess of a story, I'm sorry it's taking me so long to post chapters. I really don't like editing--- I always wind up adding more to the story than taking away from it ---so I always do it with my feet dragging behind me. Have no fear, though, there are only two (I think anyway) parts to this story. Then I might wander back into the main storyline. After all, Pixie has other misadventures to have. Then again, I do have a one-shot about Pixie's mother (since everyone has to have one) that I may post first. I'm not entirely sure, though. Anyway, to anyone still out there reading this story, thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to read it. To anyone who's put me on alert or made me a favorite, you rock like a box of socks. Remember, I'm open to any reviews…good, bad, or indifferent! Just let me know what you're thinking!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"The remedy is the experience.  
This is a dangerous liaison  
I say the comedy is that it's serious." (From "The Remedy" by Jason Mraz)

Pixie's eyes pushed themselves open, her lids feeling a little heavy like she'd been asleep for a short time and was being forced to wake up before she was ready. She didn't need to even bother to look to know that she was probably covered in bruises despite the extra padding her suit had. That was half the reason she wore the skin covering suit. It acted as a sort of body armor for the young woman since she was of a thin build. Still, there were times when she still bruised despite the padding in her black suit.

As her body started to wake itself up, Pixie realized that the gouge in her skin was starting to smart in the cold air of the ship. Then there were her wrists to contend with. Those were a whole other injury unto themselves. She was still fervently hoping they were just sprained and sore from being cold rather than broken.

Under normal, everyday circumstances, Pixie was one of the more flexible members of her crew, the young woman's entire body felt stiff. Her muscles felt completely uncooperative because of the ship's ambient temperature and the fact she'd been lying prone for some time. A normal reaction, Pixie knew, made worse because she'd put her body through its paces in the program she and Neo had made their way through.

"Don't pull on my hands," Pixie, sleepily, mumbled, as her mind made its way back into her cold body. "I think something's wrong with them."

The medic-in-training was fairly shivering--- Completely normal given the fact Pixie was almost always cold so she knew she wasn't going into shock ---but Pixie still managed the ghost of a smile as Mouse helped her to her get to her feet. Though she did feel awful, Pixie's scale for feeling awful was different from the scale used by her friends on other ships. No matter how much she didn't want to, no matter how she tried to force the idea out of her head and create a new scale for things, Pixie always compared her feeling ill now to how ill she'd been during her days in the Matrix.

On that scale, a pair of possibly sprained wrists, bruises, and a gouged out bit of her arm, though annoying when added together, were nothing too major. Compared to the fact she was supposed to have died before her sixteenth birthday, Pixie figured her injuries were on the low side of the awful scale. Her collected injuries ranked somewhere near tolerably annoying though Pixie knew she was going to have to get treated anyway. If only to figure out what was really wrong with her wrists…

"What happened to your hands, Pix?" Mouse wanted to know, as he acted as Pixie's escort down to the medical bay in order to get treated for her injuries.

Though getting down the ladders that connected the ship's decks was a pain in the rear end, Pixie was able to walk on her own letting the medic-in-training know she had no head injuries. Once she got moving which took some of the chill out of her muscles and bones, Pixie found that she could move normally once again. Still, Mouse was walking with her just in case she decided to make a complete idiot of herself and fall down a ladder or something just as foolish. Besides, though he was annoyingly talkative sometimes, Pixie didn't mind Mouse for company anyway. She rather enjoyed listening to his banter rather than Hawk's.

"The boss in that game happened. I'm not sure who programmed him but he was definitely one of the hardest bosses I've had to face even with a partner," Pixie answered, trying to grip the ladder and finding that it wasn't exactly easy given the situation with her hands.

"The boss was hard?" Mouse questioned, looking somewhat stunned at Pixie's remark. "I didn't think he was that bad. Tough yeah but nothing you wouldn't have been able to handle on your own. We built that program so you could fight on your own in there so he shouldn't have been impossible to beat."

"Take a look at the recording of the program, Mouse," Pixie countered, with a joking smile. "That old guy was one of the worst bosses I've ever faced in any of your games."

A thoughtful--- or as thoughtful as it could get considering that it was Mouse and his thoughtful looks often frightened Pixie ---look crossed Mouse's face. He seemed to be trying to remember just how he'd programmed the boss in that particular program. If he'd been the one to create the boss in that particular program anyway. Many of the ship's new training programs existed thanks to Mouse and deft hands on the keyboards. Programming had never been Pixie's strongest skill so watching Mouse create his virtual games, then allowing her to train in them, amazed the medic-in-training.

"I did the general programming for that game but I think that Hawk might have worked with me on the boss because Morpheus asked him to work with me," Mouse admitted, after a time. "Maybe he tweaked the boss when I wasn't paying attention or when I was training or something."

"I knew it wasn't you who created that boss. Your bosses aren't the crafty, role play game style. You're more of a big weapons sort of guy, sorry to say Mouse," Pixie pointed out, glad to see that the medical bay was within eyeshot.

The fact they were close enough to see the medical bay made Pixie smile. Where the rest of her body was waking back up, her hands and wrists had yet to do the same. The cold was doing them little good. It was only serving to make her wrists feel stiffer if that was at all possible. They'd been pretty darn stiff and sore when she came out of the program she and Neo had been in.

"So you've noticed," Mouse commented, fairly beaming with an extreme amount of pride.

"I've also noticed," Pixie added, with a small, girly giggle and a very bright red blush on her cheeks. "That you like to throw in those crazy ninja girls in the little miniskirts. That also part of your modus operandi?"

Without even the slightest blush on his face--- Though his ears were red, so that might have been a blush or as close to a blush as one was going to get from the young programmer ---Mouse stated, "So you know my fine work when you see it? Nice to be noticed for something so small. Come on, Pix, you've seen my woman in the red dress. If I say so myself that is one fine piece of programming right there."

Pixie could only shake her head. There were no words to describe what she was feeling at the moment and that was saying quite a bit. Her friends from Zion, especially Aisling, were always joking that Pixie knew more words to describe people, situations, and just about anything else than humanly necessary.

That wasn't including the normal swear words that were commonly used in the fleet that she'd picked up on--- As a rule, Pixie never used any swear worse since she felt them to be a sign of ignorance. However, working in the fleet, Pixie had picked up an extensive vocabulary of interesting swear words. ---but words that sounded like something only found in a Matrix dictionary.

Whether or not she actually used any of the words everyone knew she knew was very much up for debate. Pixie wasn't a big talker to start off with so it was hard to say what she knew and what she didn't. The young woman was known more as a listener than a speaker but when she did speak; her friends had decided it was better to listen to her than to ignore whatever she happened to be saying at the time.

"Remember, I can always make you a guy in a red suit or whatever makes you happy. Maybe a nice digital version of that boy you've been going out with," Mouse offered wearing a grin that was more than a little lecherous. "Since you're not a fan of my lovely lady in red. Maybe you need something to occupy your time other than your puzzles."

It took a moment before Pixie was able to process what Mouse had just offered her and, once she did, she stated, "As much as I appreciate the offer, Mouse, no thank you. I'm happy with the way things are. I don't need a virtual Wheeler to make me smile. I'd rather talk to the real thing."

"Talk?" Mouse questioned, raising his eyebrows at the medic-in-training. "I wasn't talking about talking, Pix. I was talking about other things. No matter what your friends in Zion say, my friends and I believe that, even in a program, it's always real."

Her face staining red like someone had dumped an entire bottle of red wine on it, Pixie sputtered, "No...No...Really absolutely no and...and...all Wheeler and I do is talk. We never do anything else."

She didn't feel like going into detail about the fact that she and Wheeler didn't always just talk whenever they were together. Lately, since neither of them had been back in Zion at the same time together, they just talked because that was all they could do. When they were together, however, they didn't just spent their time swapping stories about

There was some rather awkward kissing mixed into their conversations now but Pixie didn't feel like mentioning that fact to Mouse. She didn't want that getting back to the others on the ship, especially Hawk. It was bad enough that Hawk was giving her a very hard time about her seeing Wheeler. The medic-in-training didn't want to give him anymore ammunition to use against her by throwing in that fact.

Just the fact Hawk knew about her and Wheeler drove Pixie out of her mind. She wasn't entirely sure how he'd even found out--- She knew that she'd told Trinity and Switch on her birthday. She was almost sure that Apoc had found out because of Switch. ---but she knew Hawk knew. Not only did he know but Hawk made it a point to bring it up every chance he got and it was never brought up in a nice, friendly, sort of way. He took a great deal of pleasure, the perverse kind, from running Wheeler down.

Thanking Mouse for walking her to the medical bay and promising to watch the recording of the boss fight she and Neo had taken part in with him later on, Pixie slipped into the wide, cold room. From her earliest days in the Real World, the young woman disliked playing patient in any sort of medical related area. Her good health in the Real World--- Aside from some small physical issues that didn't bother Pixie most days of the week. ---was a blessing that Pixie was glad for.

Now though, anytime she was sick--- which was rarely ---or hurt, which happened many times since Pixie was a bit clumsy when not working in her own element, she was more than a little upset with herself. It was like a reminder of a time she would have much rather have forgotten.

The only time she actually liked being in the medical climate of her ship's medical bay or the medical center in Zion was when she was working. That was why she'd become a medic. She wanted to help people as she'd been helped once upon a time. She might have still been learning--- uploads aside; Morpheus believed in making sure she her training was practical approach to things as well as a theoretical approach. ---but Pixie figured she'd get there eventually. Medical school in the Matrix, if she remembered what her doctors had said to her, was supposed to take many years so it only seemed logical for her training to take some time as well.

Her being nearly a doctor at the age of nineteen, Pixie figured that was a good thing. In the Matrix, most doctors were in school until they were in their twenties. She was not yet twenty and already an intern, so to speak.

"What happened to you, Pix?" Dozer asked, noticing that his half-sized apprentice had slipped into the room and hopped up onto one of the metallic exam tables with a muted clang.

Rubbing her sore wrists, springing up onto the exam tables as she normally did apparently wasn't the brightest of ideas given her situation, Pixie, sheepishly, answered, "I did something funny to my wrists during the boss fight. I think they might be sprained but not broken. Either way, they hurt a lot when I put pressure on them."

"Let me look at Neo first, then I'll get to you, Pix. You'll be alright for a while, right?" he asked, as he busied himself checking the many bumps and bruises that adorned the Real World form of Neo.

"I'll be fine. There's nothing seriously wrong with me, I think. Nothing's broken and nothing's bleeding, anyway. That's a good sign, I suppose," Pixie laughed, swinging her legs back and forth before tucking them underneath her.

The young woman knew that her statement wasn't entirely truthful; making her glad that Dozer's attention was elsewhere. True there was nothing broken--- Nothing felt obviously broken anyway ---but her arm had been bleeding earlier. The gouge wound from the laser she'd run into had started to ooze as she'd made her way down to the medical bay. It wasn't bleeding again but it wasn't closed up either. It was just barely trickling a thin stream of blood as the wound tried to close itself again.

Poking at it, trying not to wince as she realized that the wound was still more than a little tender, Pixie knew that it was most likely going to need to be stitched shut. In order to be stitched, though, it would have to be cleaned and checked to make sure it didn't contain any bits of her sweater since leaving that in the wound might cause infection.

Making sure the wound in her arm was clean was something Pixie figured she could do on her own. Stitching, well, she could hypothetically do that on her own too but the young woman figured that there was a good chance she wouldn't do it well. It was harder to stitch up one's own body than someone else's after all. It was a lot harder to give one's own self stitches was harder than anyone thought, not that Pixie had ever tried, of course. She'd only heard that from her friends back in Zion.

Still, cleaning the wound on her own wasn't out of the questions. Hopping off of the table, landing with a thud on the metal floor--- The clunky boots they all wore didn't exactly allow for any sort of grace when it came to climbing on and jumping off things. If Pixie had her way and if the floors weren't always so darn cold, she knew she'd be walking around in just socks in an effort to get away from the boots. When she was home, she always wore just her socks. ---Pixie started to head off to dig through one of the many drawers with medical equipment in it.

"What exactly are you doing back there, Pixie?" Dozer asked, not even bothering to turn around to face the now blushing medic.

"Nothing, Dozer, sir," Pixie bluffed, trying not to giggle as she spoke. "Just had to stretch my legs for a bit. I'm still feeling a little restless after the adventure Neo and I had."

The medic-in-training was exceedingly glad that Dozer hadn't bothered to turn around and check out just what she was doing. If he'd bothered to look behind him, he would have seen a red faced, slightly giggly young woman who claimed to be nineteen years of age but looked just a little younger than that.

Pixie had never been any good at bluffing or lying, much to her own embarrassment. Though the medic-in-training found she had few occasions to outright lie to anyone, there were a few times she wished she could pull of a half descent bluff. Even those, though, appeared to be a physical impossibility for her. Something about not telling the truth always caused her to laugh or giggle or even, simply, grin and that would give the whole game away. The blushing, well, that was a story unto itself.

"Then what are you looking for in that drawer over there Pixie?" Dozer wanted to know, with an almost laugh in his voice. "Like I tell my kids back home, I have eyes in the back of my head."

With a sigh of defeat--- She'd been foiled again when it came to trying to pull something over on someone. ---Pixie admitted, "I was just going to get something to clean out this thing in my arm. I'm not sure if it needs stitches or anything but I do know it could use a good cleaning. After all, it has most of my sweater stuck in it now and I have to get that out."

There was a thoughtful moment of silence as Dozer seemed to consider what exactly he wanted to tell his young apprentice. When Morpheus had first suggested the idea of his taking on an apprentice, Dozer hadn't been all that keen on having someone to train in the ins and outs of being a shipboard medic especially when he'd been told the young woman Morpheus had chosen was someone no one else in the fleet had chosen for an apprenticeship in the medical field.

Pixie, whom he helped rebuild after her unplugging, being the apprentice Morpheus had chosen changed his mind. Though she was a bit older now, she was still the same quick minded, bright little girl he remembered from her first few weeks in the Real World. Sure she was more than a little tentative about things at times than he would have liked her to be but, other than that small flaw, Pixie was making a very good apprentice.

"Go clean out your arm but don't try to stitch it yourself," Dozer informed the young woman.

Pixie nodded, though that was unnecessary because Dozer couldn't really see her, and pointed out, "I may be slightly nuts, sir, but I'm not crazy enough to stitch up my own arm with or without something to numb that part of my arm."

Pixie had entertained the thought of stitching her own arm closed for a fleeting moment but the idea alone was enough to disgust her. As far as she could tell, there were only two options to her and her attempt to close the wound in her arm. The first was that she did what would be considered normal, numbing the area first and then stitching the wound shut. Of course, because the area was numb, there was more than a good chance she could foul up the simple, mundane job of stitching in some way. Her stitches would, most likely, not be neat and organized, leaving her with a terrible scar instead of a neat one.

On the other side of the preverbal coin, there was the option of doing the procedure without numbing the area. That way she could, at least, feel what she was doing, if she was doing anything wrong. That idea, however, freaked her out in more ways than one. Just the idea of repeatedly sticking a needle through her arm as she closed said wound gave Pixie what her friend Wheeler might call the "creeping willies." Pixie wasn't entirely sure what the "creeping willies" were but she figured they weren't a good thing from the way Wheeler said it.

Truth be told, Pixie was deathly afraid of needles despite the fact she'd been stuck by more than her fair share of needles during her days in the Matrix. Contrary to what most people thought, though, it wasn't the blood associated with an injection that frightened Pixie to tears. To the contrary and oddly enough, it was the needle itself. The silvery instrument with its pointed tip gave Pixie the worst frights ever during her Matrix days.

The fact injections--- on the rare occasion she needed one ---now locked into the jacks in her arms had thrilled Pixie beyond compare. No more needles being shoved into her body. Sure the jacks she had weren't exactly pretty to look at but they had their uses and that was all that concerned Pixie, especially when it came to needles.

Taking over the necessary items to clean out her still oozing wound, Pixie hopped back onto the table and got to work. Sure it wasn't exactly easy or fun given the state of her wrists but it had to get done. Just as long as she limited how much she twisted her wrists, things seemed to work out alright. Besides, if she cleaned out her arm, that was one less thing Dozer had to do and the faster he could check out her now aching wrists.


	13. The Sound of Silence

AN: Hiya everyone! Well, baseball season's started here in New York and my New York Mets…are being their normal lackluster selves. They have a shiny new ballpark but they're just themselves, the same motley crew that blew the season for us last year. I've decided to not hold them to high expectations this year. Maybe that way they'll actually do something good for a change instead of just making me regret spending my time watching them flop around like dead, stinky fish! Anyway, there's one more chapter left to this story that takes place during _The Matrix Reloaded_. This is the last one that takes place in the pre-Neo-as-the-One _The Matrix_ time and it's just sort of there to close off that part. Once I'm finished this story. I MAY have one really out of left field story about Pixie's mother…since everyone has to have a mom in some way. I'm still not sure I want to post it though. Anywho, thanks to everyone who's still taking their time out to read this story! I really appreciate you taking the time out to read my little misadventure. To anyone who's put my story on alert, made it a favorite, or left me a review, you rock like a box of socks! Remember, I'm open to any opinion…good, bad or indifferent. Just let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Hello darkness, my old friend,  
I've come to talk with you again,  
Because a vision softly creeping,  
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,  
And the vision that was planted in my brain  
Still remains  
Within the sound of silence." (From "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel)

Once Dozer had finished with Neo's exam--- Leaving Pixie to clean out her arm on her own ---he turned his attention to his apprentice and her sore wrists. The young woman though, after spending much of her life in the Matrix being poked and prodded by doctors, she'd be able to deal with any exam with a sort of silent stoicism. At least show some dignity in front of Neo instead of acting like a very grumpy little kid who didn't want to be at the doctor's office.

When all was said and done, Pixie figured she managed a bit of both. She didn't whine when Dozer when to check her wrists but she did try to pull them away more than once. The medic-in-training knew that the treatment she was getting, the poking and prodding and squeezing of her offended wrists was par for the course. It didn't mean, however, that she had to like or even tolerate it. Every time she went to puller smaller wrists out of Dozer's larger hands, he gave her a look she assumed he gave his children when they weren't behaving.

At least, the young woman knew, she could take solace in the fact she hadn't made a sound while Dozer stitched up the cut in her arm. She sat and watched, seemingly not bothered by the metal needle weaving into and out of her arm. In truth, Pixie was silently freaking out. She had no love for needles--- One of the reasons Pixie found she was glad she had the jacks in her arms. There'd never be a real need for her to ever have a needle again. ---and watching one weave its way through her skin bothered her on many levels. Still, she tried to keep her expression as impassive as possible.

Whether she was successful in that endeavor or not was beyond her. She couldn't see her own expression as Dozer worked.

All medical related treatments were forgotten though as Pixie lay on her stomach, knowing full well that laying that way was only going to hurt her hip bones and give her a few more bruises, with her head propped up in her hands. At the moment, said hands were encased in braces as a result of a matching set of grade one sprains. Pixie knew she'd have to wear the braces for a few weeks--- between four and six ---or until Dozer saw fit to tell her to take them off, whatever came first.

Either way, the combination of the crude braces and the extremely mild--- Pixie had proven to have low tolerance for two things in the Real World. The first was alcohol and the second was standard issue pain killers. Even the mildest of the pain killers that were standard issue on the craft tended to knock Pixie for a loop. Dozer had chalked up her reactions to the fact she was smaller in height and lighter in weight than most women in the fleet. Her smaller, thinner body lacked the ability metabolize the drugs as quickly or as efficiently as the normal woman might. ---pain killer she'd been given had helped Pixie wrists a great deal. It had helped her enough so that she could prop her head up with her hands without worrying about pain.

Pixie knew once the pain killers wore off, her wrists would be aching again but she'd accidently on purpose forget to tell anyone that. She had no love for the foggy feelings that often came with pain killers. Besides, she decided that less was more when it came to medication. She'd taken enough of them in the Matrix when she had no choice. Now she had a choice and, for better or worse, she was making it with her own mind.

Neo was sitting on the table across from her own, watching Pixie with a curious expression on his face. Out of the program, back on the cold ship they all called home, Pixie slipped back into the role he recognized. She'd gone back to being the taciturn, shy young woman that everyone on the ship seemed to be more comfortable with. She'd said very little during her own exam and now was just lying quietly on the battered metal table, staring alternately around the room and at her own warped reflection in the banged up metal surface underneath her.

It might have been because she was hurt but even the energy Pixie exuded seemed more subdued now that she was back on the ship. Though he'd seen her do it, Pixie now didn't really seem like the type to get excited about anything nor bounce on the balls of her feet. She just seemed flat almost…like someone or something had taken all her energy from her, leaving her a silent shell of a person. It was a far cry from the individual Neo recalled talking to and fighting alongside only hours earlier.

"You seem like you want to ask me something," Pixie broached, breaking the silence and wearing the ghost of the smile he'd seen while she'd been up to her elbows in puzzles.

"It's nothing," Neo answered, recalling something Pixie--- or another version of Pixie anyway ---had told him in during their small break before fighting the program's boss.

Looking curiously at Neo, Pixie could only guess at what was going on in Neo's head and what question he wanted to ask her. Whatever guess she made, the young woman knew, could have been correct or could have been way off base. She wasn't, after all, in Neo's head. If she were to venture a guess--- and she was ---Pixie decided it probably had something to do with what she'd been before she'd been freed from the Matrix. Neo had asked her as much while they were training and Pixie figured he was still curious now since she hadn't really answered his question during the program. She kept dancing around the question, hoping Neo would forget about it and move on to something else.

Pixie knew she could have told him if she really wanted to tell him. There was just a very large part of her mind--- at least she figured it was her mind anyway ---that wouldn't allow her to even consider saying anything about what she'd been during her days in the Matrix. Her past, for good or for ill, was her past and hers alone. Whether or not she shared it with the others around her, Pixie figured, was her business. After all, it was part of her no matter how much she tried to ignore that fact and live in the moment, forgetting what life had been like for her before she'd been freed.

The problem was, Pixie didn't really want her past to get around for what she thought were valid reasons. Maybe they weren't to anyone else but to Pixie, and with her admittedly odd logic, it seemed like they were.

Pixie didn't want the story of her past to get out because she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for because of her "situation," as she called it in her mind. It was the same reason why, during her time trapped in the Matrix, she'd never told Hawk about what was wrong with her. She let him go on thinking she got sick an awful lot until he discovered the truth for himself, much to her chagrin.

Part of her past she couldn't make herself get way from, Pixie didn't want to find herself being treated differently just because of something that happened in what was almost a past life to her now. The young woman, just like all of her friends, knew the Matrix was a virtual reality but Pixie, and Wheeler too which always made her laugh a bit, felt the effects it had on those who'd been freed from its slimly confines.

Pixie knew that everyone who'd come from the Matrix had their own pasts and their own stories from them. Everyone's situations were different since no two people were the same. Still the effect that past had on them couldn't be denied, even on the smallest, least noticeable of levels.

For the resident medic-in-training, her past was one she didn't want to share with most of her closest friends back home. She still harbored her fears of being treated differently from her days in the Matrix. In her mind, it was better for them--- and for her ---if they didn't know. What they didn't know, couldn't hurt her and wouldn't bother them.

There was one person who knew her whole story but he was a special case. The two of them had been totally honest with each other and the story came up. She'd been honest with him and Pixie still worried about the effects of said honesty. He hadn't said anything to her but Pixie still waited nervously for something that might never happen.

"You're free to ask me whatever it is you want to ask me," she pointed out still wearing the same ghostly smile. "I won't get offended if you ask me since curiosity isn't a crime as far as I figure it."

She giggled, a strange sound coming out of the serious looking young woman, and added, "If you think about it, without being curious, none of us would be here. I guess being curious is a good thing if you want to think about it like that."

Giving the young woman a sidelong look--- She was giving him permission to ask whatever was on his mind, after all, even though she'd been evasive about answering his questions before. ---Neo wanted to know, "What were you before you were freed?"

Pixie looked thoughtful for a moment, cocking her head to one side and biting her lower lip. Though Neo was almost sure the latter action was one the young woman was completely unaware she was doing. Pixie knew she couldn't lie to Neo; make up some story about her past because everyone else on the ship, save Mouse much to her gladness, knew the story because they were either present at her freeing or knew her in the Matrix, though that was only Hawk. It would be far too easy for her to get caught in a lie that way.

Besides, Pixie couldn't lie to save her life so the point was moot anyway. Neo would just have to look at her and he'd know she was making up a story just to give him any old answer. The fact she couldn't lie was something she'd learned by way of her friend Chian who, once upon a time, tried to teach her, Wheeler, and Hawk how to play something like Matrix poker. Pixie had absolutely no "poker face" whatsoever so she usually sat and watched the others play. Chian had nicknamed her Wheeler's "good luck charm" since he usually won more often when she was around.

"I was just a nondescript fifteen year old," she answered, after a pause. "Absolutely no one special and definitely no one memorable. The only thing, I guess anyway, anyone would remember about me was the fact I wanted to be a doctor back then. That's why I became a medic here. At least I got a chance to do something I've always wanted to do."

Neo simply nodded his head, getting the idea that he shouldn't press Pixie any further for answers. Not at that specific moment anyway. There was something in the tone of her voice--- The young woman had gone from her normal quiet "explaining" voice to something that almost sounded wistful to Neo ---that clued him into the fact Pixie was done with her story.

Pixie had told him as much as she was going to and Neo figured that he should be glad she'd shared that much with him, her being a more experienced crew member. Though she was definitely one of the quietest people Neo had ever had the occasion to meet, Pixie seemed to be a friendly person despite the fact she was strangely quiet. Then again, Neo figured it could have been because Pixie reminded him of a young girl more than a young woman, no matter what her age was. At the moment and in the given circumstances, he wasn't sure either way.

"You must attract a lot of attention in the Construct, though," Neo complimented, changing the subject. "I don't think anyone on here is as acrobatic as you are."

Pixie's face colored a startling shade of scarlet and she turned her eyes and her attention towards the dull metal table she was laying on. The table was clean, though, despite the fact it looked like it was absolutely filthy. It was just that the metal was dull; instead of the bright and shiny metal that everyone was use to associating with the medical field.

Even Pixie had asked if the surface was safe to work on when she'd first started her training on the ship because of how it looked. Dozer had chuckled at her comment and assured her it was safe. It was just how the table looked because it had seen much use. Then he showed her where the disinfectants were kept so she could clean the tables if she was worried.

"It's not exactly the flashiest of skills. The others on here are much better than I am and have flashier skills that are of actual use in the Matrix," Pixie, matter of factly, pointed out. "I'm still just as much of a student as you are when it comes to learning how to do things in the Construct."

With a small giggle, which again caught Neo off guard, she added, "I hope you were alright with the change in the program when I jumped in to play. I know sometimes the puzzles annoy a person, at least that's what Hawk says."

"It was different," Neo started, unsure of what else to really say.

He, himself, wasn't a fan of puzzles but he guessed training was training. Then there was the fact that the Matrix could throw just about anything at them so, maybe, knowing how to fight and solve a puzzle at the same time was a good thing. Plus he'd learned…something…from his time with Pixie. He'd gained a little more information about the world he lived in.

"The boss caught me off guard, though. I'm sorry you got so beat up. Mouse said that he programmed the games bur, for some reason, might have gotten Hawk to help him with the boss. If that's the case, that explains everything," Pixie explained.

Neo looked the bruises that marked his arms and hands. The ones he could see through the holes in the sweater he was wearing anyway. They were just starting out, the bruises he was covered with but they were still sore, letting Neo know that they were going to be painful.

Strange as it sounded to him, Neo found he was starting to get use to the fact his arms were always bruised from sparring with the others on the ship. Back before he'd been freed from the Matrix, the idea that, one day, he might know martial arts and be sporting bruises as a result of that knowledge seemed crazy. Now, though, it was rapidly becoming normal. Neo wasn't entirely sure which idea worried him more, the fact he knew martial arts to a black belt degree or the fact he could use said skills to spar anyone on the ship and come close to winning.

"It's alright," Neo said to Pixie. "I wouldn't mind going through it again with you. It was actually more fun than I thought it was going to be."

"That would be a lot of fun but, next time," Pixie added with a small smile. "I'm going to check out if the boss is alright. I like a challenge as much as the next girl but that's unfair if the boss is unbeatable like that guy almost was."

She thought about adding that the Matrix wasn't exactly the fairest place in the world and the programs they used sometimes mirrored that fact but Pixie thought better of it. Pixie didn't want to be the one who broke that bit of bad news to Neo. He was still learning how things worked in the Real World and Pixie didn't want to be the one to scare him off of anything that was out there.

That job was better suited for people like Morpheus and Trinity, people who actually did scary things in the Matrix. What she did and could do in the Matrix, paled in comparison to some of the things they'd done.

As the Neo and Pixie sat in the medical bay, conversing about their misadventure in Pixie's puzzle program, two other figures listened from the side of the metal door. They weren't eavesdropping so much as listening in a highly interested and curious way.

After all, even after a year of her being on the ship, it was rare for Pixie to actually sit down and talk to anyone. Even when she was alone with the other females on the ship--- all two of them and usually by force---Pixie tended to keep to herself. With Neo, she sounded almost like a normal nineteen year old.

"Did you do this on purpose, sir?" Trinity asked, turning to speak to the ship's captain who happened to be standing next to her.

Morpheus gave Trinity his best Cheshire cat, unreadable smile and answered, "I couldn't have planned something like this even if I tried."

"That may be true, sir, but was it your intention for Pixie to give Neo that history lesson while they were training?" Trinity countered, curious about the choices made for Neo's training more than anything else.

The little lesson Pixie had given Neo was unusual in that it was hardly ever given to the normal trainees coming out of the Academy in Zion. The only group who ever received that lesson were those planning on going into the scientific or medical fields since they were the group taking genetics.

Since that was the case, they were the only group concerned with the genetic status of anyone coming from the Matrix. Pixie was a medic-in-training but she'd taken science training as well as the classes those going into medicine had to take. It wasn't unheard of for medics to dabble in the sciences and the other way around. Pixie might have been considering doing that but she hadn't expressed any interest yet. Her training as a medic and as a normal member of the resistance was keeping her very busy so she had little free time to pursue other interests.

"He had to learn. It was best he hear it from someone who is familiar with the most recent version of the lesson," Morpheus, cryptically, informed his first mate. "Besides, I worry about that young woman sometimes."

"Pixie?" Trinity wanted to know, sounding somewhat stunned as she'd been talking about Neo and not Pixie. "Why? She's doing alright in here and in the Matrix. She's still more than a little gun shy but Tank's been helping her deal with that in a…creative…way."

Trinity, since she'd been the one to very nearly hand train Pixie when the young woman first joined the crew, had made it a point to keep an eye or two on Pixie just to check on her progress. She'd seen Pixie in a very bad way after her first kill and had talked her through that as well. Pixie had needed someone to talk to at the time and Morpheus had put her on the case since she knew Pixie relatively well. Even with a good part of her interest now focused on Neo and his training, she still checked in on Pixie every once and a while just to make sure she was still working hard.

"Pixie will not speak freely unless she's put in a situation where she's comfortable and she will not take a leadership role no matter how much anyone forces her to take one," Morpheus pointed out. "Plus she hadn't yet had an opportunity to train with Neo in an element he was uncomfortable in. I didn't anticipate her talking to Neo about the history of the human race, though. That was just an added bonus, one could say."

After a thoughtful pause, Morpheus added, "Though I feel that Pixie's been doing well, given her limitations. If she could get past those, she might prove to be stronger than her form shows us."

The pair continued to listen to the conversation between the man who might be the One and Pixie, the young woman who worked as a medic-in-training, giving the pair time to both heal and have a rest. Anything could happen in the Real World and anything would. A moment's reprieve was always a rare things and it was always something to be savored. One never knew when they would get another chance


	14. A Forest

AN: Hiya everyone! Glad to say that this story is finally over. I apologize that it's taken so long to get together. For some reason editing things takes me forever to do and it's not something I'm very good at. I always wind up adding more than taking out. Anyway, thank you for sticking with this bit of a story. I promise to get back to the main part of Pixie's story sooner rather than later. She still has a few misadventures left, by herself and with Wheeler. To everyone who's put this story on alert or made it a favorite, thanks very much. To anyone's whose left a review, you rock like a box of socks. I'm open to any and all opinions…good, bad, and indifferent! Just let me know what you think!

OH! This part of the story takes place at some point during the beginning of _The Matrix Reloaded_. Maybe even before that storyline and before _Kid's Story_ from _The Animatrix_.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Come closer and see  
see into the trees  
find the girl  
while you can  
Come closer and see  
see into the dark  
just follow your eyes  
just follow your eyes…" (From "A Forest" by The Cure)

Pixie, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and wearing several heavy sweatshirts in a very vain attempt to keep herself warm, sat at the table in the mess hall of the newly repaired _Nebuchadnezzar_. She'd been sleeping for a handful of hours, having already been on watch earlier during the always long nights, though she hadn't been sleeping soundly.

Though it sounded odd and abnormal, the lack of sound sleep was considered normal for Pixie. She'd toss and turn, wake up and try to convince herself to go back to sleep again. The only time Pixie ever got something like a good night's sleep--- and she didn't really believe that fact no matter how often she'd been told it ---was when she was sleeping next to Wheeler. Since Wheeler was off on the _Shatterpoint_, Pixie had to settle for fitful sleeping instead.

The young woman wasn't exactly sure why she'd been dragged out of her not exactly warm or comfortable bed in what she thought were the very early hours of the morning by a sheepish looking Neo. Though the group she now worked with was much smaller than the crew she'd started with--- She was now the official medical officer on the_ Nebuchadnezzar_, a fact that still gave her slight panic attacks. ---Pixie was almost completely sure she hadn't missed her turn on watch that night. She remembered checking the schedule before she'd gone to sleep just to double check, just in case. Yet she found herself awake and sitting at the table in the mess hall, counting the rust marks on the table top so her heart would stop racing and so she didn't focus on the fact she was worried.

"Is something wrong?" Pixie all too quickly asked, once both Trinity and Neo appeared at the table, taking seats on the bench across from her.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," Trinity assured the still skittish as ever Pixie. "Neo just has a question for you."

A normal individual probably would have said something to the effect of "Can't this wait until morning" because they'd been asleep. Pixie had never claimed to be a normal person, not out loud but to herself. In her own mind, Pixie saw herself as odd, twist, cracked, broken, or otherwise flawed and it probably didn't help any that her friend Aisling had said most of that to her and about her. Even if normal was highly subjective in Zion, Pixie knew she was somewhere completely off the mark by her friends back home. Her personality had far too many quirks to ever be considered just "normal."

"What do you want to know?" she asked, propping her head up in her hands and giving Neo a smile that wasn't really a smile.

It had become a popular myth on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ just after she'd become a permanent member of the crew that Pixie only had two smiles and neither of them was a genuine, honest to goodness smile. Most said it was because there was nothing for her to really smile about, given the circumstances that surrounded them. Life on one of the hovercrafts of the fleet was not a happy one, after all. They were warriors and warriors had little time to smile.

Still, Pixie was human and. for whatever reasons, had two forms of something like a smile. The first was a mischievous grin that she explained Wheeler and her friends in Zion had dubbed her "Pixie grin" because it reminded Wheeler of stories about the trouble making pixies he'd heard about when he lived in the Matrix. The other was a ghost of a smile that Pixie wore when she was feeling particularly shy or wanted to seem friendly. It was the latter type of smile Pixie was currently sporting.

The odd thing was that Pixie did indeed have a real smile. She had one of those honest, open, bright smiles that shouldn't have really existed in the Real World because of the war. Trinity had only ever seen said mysterious smile once and had been the only one to see it to boot. The sighting of said smile had been just after their communal rescued by the _Shatterpoint_ and _Logos_. Pixie had been put back together after the beating Hawk gave her and placed in a chemically induced sleep so she wouldn't suffer as her body shivered to raise its temperature. The young woman had come to with a certain scruffy haired young man from the _Shatterpoint _holding her hand. Something about that young man--- Wheeler also glibly called Pixie's little boyfriend by many ---had made her smile that day.

"What were you before you were freed?" Neo asked, bringing up a question he'd asked Pixie once upon a time.

Pixie went from shyly smiling to looking extremely uncomfortable in a matter of moments. It looked almost as if she was trying to figure out the fastest way to escape so she wouldn't have to answer the posited question. Knowing that escape was next to impossible--- there were only so many places she could escape to on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ --- Pixie's lower lip slipped into her mouth as her mind changed tracks, trying to figure out how best to answer the much despised question before her.

"I was me," she, lamely, offered, knowing that her answer was far from acceptable to Neo and Trinity. "That's it."

"Pixie," Trinity stated, very nearly making Pixie jump out of her own skin. "I'm asking you to tell Neo the truth about your past situation. He's the only person currently on our crew that doesn't know."

Pixie shook her head and countered with, "Neo can look it up in my personal file. I give him my permission to do so. Please don't make me tell him, Trinity. I don't want to talk about it."

Though Neo's request had spooked her enough to give her the skin crawling feeling that always preceded her panic attacks, Pixie was still able to find one small flaw in the logic behind the situation she'd found herself in. Trinity had mentioned that Neo was the only person on the ship who didn't know her whole story, a fact that wasn't entirely true.

There was a new Operator now--- a more experienced Operator named Link ---and he didn't know her story either. At least, Pixie was almost sure he didn't know her story either. Morpheus wouldn't have told him her entire history without asking first. Captain or not, he was not in the habit of giving out what was very personal information without that person's permission.

There was always the chance that Link had heard about her and the situation she'd come out of from Dozer and Tank. The two former Operators had known Link and it wasn't unusual for anyone to talk about what they did on the ships while away from their friends and family. Pixie kept the gossip to a minimum but knew her friends, save Wheeler, did not.

Pixie filed that bit of information away just in case she developed the nerve to use it later on. Trinity, no matter how much of a sisterly figure Pixie saw her as, was still a person of higher rank and Neo...well...Neo was something else. Pixie wasn't one of those extreme believers like Morpheus and some others she knew but she couldn't deny what she'd seen and experienced in the short time she'd been around Neo.

Neo was defiantly something special. If he wasn't the One, he was the most skilled individual to ever come out of the Matrix. Skilled enough that she'd been working on rewriting many of the diagnostic charts shipboard medics used to assess individuals from the Matrix.

"Pix," Neo stated, using the informal nickname most everyone used for her. "I'd rather hear it from you than read about it in some file."

Pixie squirmed in her seat, unsure of what she wanted to do. It would have been rude for her not to answer the question but, by the same token, she wasn't comfortable with answering the question to begin with. It wasn't something she liked talking about with anyone and it wasn't a question she, herself, made practice to ask.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Pixie tried, "I was just your average fifteen year old kid. I went to school, and messed around with my computer when I was at home. That's about it. I was absolutely nothing special."

Though she tried keeping a straight face, Pixie knew she'd failed miserably. She felt her face turn a vivid shade of red and knew that she was trying to looking anywhere but at the two people sitting across from her. Lying was not something she excelled at and Trinity knew that fact well. Even Neo--- who seemed not to be able to read people well --- probably could see it to. It was written all over her face in bright red letters.

"Pixie," Trinity warned. "Now the truth. You've always been a lousy liar and you know that."

A few beats of uncomfortable silence passed in the small space. Two sets of eyes were fixed on the shy looking medic who appeared to be more interested in her hands as they lay flat against the rusted metal surface of the table instead of what was going on around her.

Though she looked rather distracted and distant, Pixie's mind was working a mile a minute. There had to be something for her to say, some way for her to answer the query she'd been presented with. Some way she could answer without them calling her on the fact she was just afraid of telling the truth.

"If I tell the truth, things are going to change," Pixie pointed out, speaking softly and seemingly to no one at all, when she realized she was cornered by the question. "He's going to think of me differently when I say something…which is why I don't like saying anything."

"Does Wheeler think of you differently?" Trinity broached, catching Pixie off guard and getting her attention once again. "I'm sure you told him all about your past. He seems like he knows almost as much about you as the bunch of us who freed you."

"That's different," the young woman countered, stammering over her own words. "He's Wheeler and he's...different...from everyone else I know."

That was one thing Pixie could say for certain, that Wheeler was different from anyone else she'd ever had the chance to meet in the Matrix and the Real World. He was one of the rare few people Pixie knew she could implicitly trust, though how she knew that was beyond her. Pixie, by nature and because of circumstances that were beyond her control and had always been that way, wasn't a very trusting person. She'd been told--- by Chian, a friend from the _Logos_, who'd claimed to be an expert on such things ---that the reason behind the fact she trusted Wheeler was that she loved him in more than a platonic way.

The young woman knew she liked Wheeler and that they were better than best friends. She cared for and about Wheeler and often worried when she didn't hear from him in more than a week. Pixie knew that it mattered to her what Wheeler thought about her and how he perceived her, an unusual switch of things because, normally, Pixie didn't really care what others thought about her.

Besides, Pixie didn't really understand why everyone needed to label feelings when it was pretty obvious to anyone that saw them together for more than five minutes that her relationship with Wheeler--- now defined and no longer a messy jumble of things that both made practice not to talk about ----just plain worked. That was how things were and Pixie wasn't asking any more questions. She and Wheeler, living in the same space, and playing house with each other even though they acted was more like friendly roommates than husband and wife, just plain worked.

Though she liked when things were neatly labeled and named, Pixie wanted her relationship with Wheeler left alone. Neither of them felt the need to label it because it worked. Pixie was afraid a label, any label, might change that fact.

Pixie sighed, realizing that she was losing the silent battle with the combined wills of Neo and Trinity. It was a losing battle on more than one front, making matters worse in her mind. She knew she was going to lose the battle over keeping her past a secret but she was also losing sleep. Though she was completely functional on only a handful of hours of sleep, Pixie knew that it was just healthier to try and get a normal amount of hours of sleep.

The past few days had been very busy for her thanks to the Machines getting their preverbal hands on a list of potentials that were to be freed. In order to get them out safely, Neo had been asked to do a majority of the rescuing and Pixie, much to her surprise, had found herself tagging along for a few of them.

Between her jaunts into the Matrix and her work in the medical bay rebuilding freed individuals, sleep had become a rarer than normal commodity. Even poor sleep was something to be savored because rest was rest in her mind. She knew what she had to do…it just didn't mean she had to like doing it.

With a deep sigh, Pixie explained, "What I was in the Matrix is a far cry from what I am now. I dress like a dancer--- despite the fact I've been called 'the Spandex Ninja' before ---but I was never a dancer. I bend like an acrobat or a gymnast or something like that but I wasn't anything like that back in the Matrix. What I was in the Matrix was a far cry from what I am now and for that I'm extremely thankful."

The young woman fell silent for a moment, thinking and not realizing that her lower lip was in between her two front teeth. Pixie kept trying to avoid biting her lip. The funny thing was that the more she tried not to do it, the more she did it. It was counterproductive but in an amusing sort of way.

While working in the Medical Center in Zion, Pixie made a consorted effort not to look like a frightened kid stuck in an adult's world. She tried looking professional in order to make her patients feel at ease.

In the short time she'd worked in the Medical Center--- when she wasn't working on the ship ---Pixie had her superiors called on her more than she'd ever care to admit. Most of her patients wanted just to make sure that the young woman sitting across from them and talking about treatment options was an actual medic-in-training and not just a kid with a smart mouth pretending to know things.

Since she was, now, the onboard medic for her crew, Pixie figured she should try and act in a more mature way. Technically speaking, if one was going by physical age, she was the youngest person now on the crew of the _Nebuchadnezzar_ but she still felt the need to try and act more mature just because of the position she now held. She was no longer a medic-in-training so she wanted act the part but, most of the time, it didn't work and she just looked like a kid playing at being an adult.

"When I was in the Matrix," she started, not bothering to look up from the table top. "I was raised by my maternal aunt and her husband because my mother ran off after I was born and she wasn't exactly forthcoming with who my father was. My aunt and uncle were killed in a fire when I was nine years old. Since they were the only family I had, I wound up living in a group home from age nine until I was freed."

Pixie paused, allowing her words to hang in the air for a few moments before adding, "When I was still in the Matrix, I wasn't anything like how I am now because I was dying. There was something wrong with me--- the doctors in there didn't know what it was really but they knew it was causing me to go into cardiac failure ---and I was dying a very slow and very painful death. They gave me until my eighteenth birthday but I guess they were just being kind. If I'd stayed in the Matrix, I wouldn't have made it to sweet sixteen."

Gathering enough courage to finally look up, Pixie finished, "I got involved in hacking because I wanted to leave something out there so people would remember me since I had no family and the closest thing I had to a friend was Hawk. We all saw how that friendship turned out."

Once it was clear Pixie had nothing more to say, Neo found himself stunned into silence. He'd wanted to know what Pixie was for quite some time, since she said very little on the ship and mostly kept to herself, and he'd thought he'd prepared for anything that might come as an answer.

Pixie's answer, however, had not entered into Neo's mind. Not in any way, shape, or form had Neo ever suspected the shy but curiously intelligent young woman that called herself medic for the _Nebuchadnezzar_ had nearly died while she was in the Matrix.

"Is she kidding?" Neo wanted to know, turning his attention towards Trinity and away from Pixie.

Pixie would have danced if she could when she realized Neo's attention had moved away from her. Pillowing her head with her arms and hands, Pixie was very surprised to find that she had tears in her eyes. The young woman wasn't exactly a big fan of crying--- She thought it made her seem weak though Wheeler had said that crying was human and normal. ---and had decided not to do anymore crying in the near future. She'd done quite enough crying after the mess caused by Hawk and Cypher.

The tears were also a surprise because Pixie had figured that she'd come to terms with her past. Pixie was well aware of the fact that her nearly dying before her being freed was real. It might have been the only real thing she'd experienced in her time in the Matrix. Pixie tried to rationalize her life in the Matrix. It was her past and, though it had bearing on her present, it was her past. All that mattered now was what happened now because it was real.

Thinking like that, for Pixie anyway, usually worked. Diane from the Matrix, with no family, no friends, and the preverbal Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, was gone for good. Parts of her still lived on in Pixie but, for the most part, nothing about Diane had been transferred over when Pixie took the red pill.

Pixie had things that Diane only dreamed of having. Things like a family--- even an adopted one suited her just fine. She'd been an orphan in the Matrix anyway. ---and friends. Well, what amounted to friends anyway because, as Pixie had recently learned, they thought of her as more family than anything else. Most Pod Borns created families from their friends, Zion and Pod Born alike.

Most importantly, and very contrary to the fact her work put her in constant danger, Pixie no longer had to worry about the sword that had hung over her head, threatening to come crashing down to end what passed for her life in the Matrix. She'd made it past not only her sixteenth birthday but her eighteenth as well. If whatever was after her life in the Matrix didn't get her, then Pixie was fairly certain that she was going to survive the war. At least that's how her mind saw it anyway.

"She's telling you the truth…finally," Trinity answered. "I watched her before her freeing and I was there when she was freed. She was a sad sight to see in the Matrix and an even sadder one out of it. All skin and bones…worst case I'd ever seen in a kid her age."

A few moments of extremely uncomfortable silence passed in the small room. Pixie had picked her face up, still keeping her head pillowed on her arms. She looked exhausted but both Neo and Trinity knew that looks could be deceiving. Pixie did get tired--- She had to get tired. She was human just like the rest of them ---but she was able to fight the uphill battle with exhaustion and act "normally" on short amounts of rest.

By "normal" it was meant wide awake and annoyingly alert. She was the only person Trinity could think of that, after only two hours of poor sleep, was able to function as if she'd gotten a full night's rest.

"I'm sorry," Neo said, turning his attention back to Pixie.

The expression on Pixie's elven featured face fell to somewhere around her knees. That was exactly the reaction she was expecting and exactly the reaction she'd feared. The last thing she wanted was pity because she'd come from a situation she had no control over. Even in the Matrix, Pixie had hated being pitied because of her situation. That was why she'd kept it hidden from Hawk for so long when they were kids and why she hid her past now.

Pixie was well aware of the fact her former situation, in the Matrix and when it was discovered in the Real World, had been one that might elicit pity in even the hardest of hearts but it wasn't the reaction Pixie wanted since it was of no use to her. Pity, during her days in the Matrix, wasn't going to help her get better. It hadn't motivated someone to adopt her so her last few years would be comfortable and easy. It wouldn't do anything except make her feel worse about herself.

"It's not your fault," Pixie retorted, a little more snappishly than she might have liked. "If it's anyone's fault it might have been my mother's. Even then, I don't know if that's right since I never knew her. I only know what my aunt said about her."

Replaying her words in her mind, Pixie added, "I'm sorry…I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I shouldn't have reacted like that. It's just that I've never wanted pity for my situation back then."

"You don't have to apologize," Neo countered. "It's just that..."

"You didn't know what else to say, right?" Pixie interjected, the ghostly smile returning to her face.

It was almost the normal response when people found out about her illness during her days in the Matrix. People always apologized to her once they heard about her situation. They didn't know what they were apologizing for or why they were apologizing to her but they all said they felt like they had to say something. The only thing, apparently, any of them could think of saying was an apology which Pixie didn't understand. It wasn't like they were the cause of her mysterious illness....as far as she knew anyway.

Her illness in the Matrix was something no one really understood. Even the so-called "big brains" on the Science Council--- The half mad group that was responsible for all medical and scientific discoveries made in Zion and a group Pixie had started to aspire towards being part of someday. ---who'd looked at her files were confused by what they read.

There seemed to be no intelligent rhyme or reason as to why the Machines with their linear, organized minds, would set about killing something that provided them with power. There was no intelligence behind simply destroying a human battery for the sake of destroying it. No matter how small the power source was, it was still a source of power and should have been kept alive.

Though her impending death might have been one of the only real things Pixie ever experienced while in the Matrix, after her rebuilding, there was no evidence of her previous ailments. Pixie found that, once she'd gotten herself together, she was more than just fine. She found herself able to do things she'd never done before.

While experiences both in and out of the false reality that was the Matrix served to make her ready mind stronger than it had been before--- Though she carried no trace of the illness that had been killing her, Pixie retained her ready to learn nature from the Matrix ---she found that her body had become stronger. Well, not exactly world moving strong but stronger than it had been before her freeing.

Pixie, due to her size and build, would never be earth shatteringly strong. Instead, her strength lay in the fact she was abnormally flexible. The idea she was naturally flexible, since she could bend in odd ways outside of the Matrix, came as quite the shock to Pixie who'd never been able to touch her toes, even when she'd been healthy.

Whatever the case was, the only thing the Science Council had decided was that the Machines might have been to blame for her illness since it was in the Matrix alone it existed. That was all Pixie needed and wanted to know since that was one threat that no longer existed for her. She could stand and fight the Machines that wanted to end her life now. Diseases, the few that existed in Zion, couldn't be battled in the conventional sense of the word.

Neo, looking sheepish, nodded his head. He guessed that Pixie was use to such a response. Maybe not in the Real World where pasts were rarely talked about but in the Matrix where such knowledge was common.

"How many people here know that about you?" Neo wanted to know, sounding curious.

Taking a mental headcount, Pixie answered, "Not counting the two of you, four other people."

Turning to Trinity, the young woman added, "And yes Wheeler is one of the four."

The look Trinity gave her let Pixie know that part of her answer was expected. It was strange, the harder Pixie tried to keep things about her and Wheeler a secret, the more people knew about them. There was no denying it anymore that she and Wheeler were together, not after the incident on the _Shatterpoint_ and the fact they'd shared a room on the ship.

The topic had now been moved to the fact she and Wheeler lived together in the rare occasion they were in Zion at the same time. Pixie's home had only one bed and the pair did share said single bed. Just as on the time their shared Wheeler's room on the _Shatterpoint_, the pair tended to sleep in much the same way…cuddled up together.

Pixie was the type of person, much to the amusement of her little group of friends in Zion, that flinched when she was touched without warning. She'd never really liked being hugged by others and occasionally friendly pats on the back or shoulders now had her jumping out of her own skin. Aisling, for some reason, found that one particularly amusing. She now tried to get Pixie to jump like that every time they were in the same place and Pixie wasn't paying attention to her.

Still, despite the fact Pixie wasn't the biggest fan of being touched; Wheeler cuddling her as they both fell asleep was something she secretly liked. There was something to be said about feeling safe and secure while wrapped up in someone's arms. Maybe it had something to do with her panic attacks and the fact they were always worse in the dark but Pixie couldn't be sure.

It might have been strange given their relationship but Pixie figured that the security she felt when Wheeler was home was what it felt like when a child felt when they was with their parents. It was that sort of security and safety that she figured a child felt when they were trying to get away from a nightmare. A kind of invulnerable feeling where nothing at all could get them. A place where no harm could happen.

The strange thing was, to Pixie anyway, that she didn't see Wheeler as a father figure. He was her better than best friend--- a title that fell somewhere between friend and boyfriend she figured ---no a father to her. Pixie had never known her birth parents nor did she know if the individuals the Matrix said were her birth parents were actually even related to her through genetics.

Maybe her birth parents lived in Zion. Then again, maybe they didn't. Pixie didn't know for sure and, at times, didn't really care. There were enough parental figures in her life to cover for the fact she'd never known her birth parents.

Pixie had her foster parents, Rain and Torrent. They were as close to actual parents as Pixie had ever had. Even though she was living on her own--- well with Wheeler ---if Wheeler wasn't around she could be found at Rain's helping Eli with his homework.

Away from Zion, there was Morpheus. Pixie wasn't sure why she regarded Morpheus as a father figure but she guessed it might have had something to do with how he treated those that worked under him. Even in emergency situations, it never seemed like he was barking orders. It was more like he made "suggestions" as to what to do and it just got done because it always seemed like the right thing to do…to most people anyway.

It wasn't just parents that Pixie seemed to have found in Zion. She'd recently discovered that she'd gathered a strange group of non-blood related brothers and sisters. They were her friends that weren't old enough to be parents but she still found herself inexplicably tied together with. Other than Eli, her adopted brother and Rain and Torrent's son, there were the twins, Aisling and Adoh, and Ngaio, too. Conall, Aisling's on-again, off-again boyfriend, was probably just a friend. He wasn't around enough--- it always depended on Aisling's mood that week ---to be considered family.

Then there was Chian, who'd declared herself Pixie's older sister for some reason. Pixie hadn't asked Chian why because she was afraid of the answer. Chian was nosy, big mouthed, and opinionated but oddly good at giving advice in a pinch. She also knew about things that Pixie had trouble understanding--- like why Hawk and Wheeler hadn't ever been able to get along and what to do after Wheeler kissed her for the first time ---and didn't want to tell her adopted parents or her other friends. The only problem with Chian was that she wasn't always forthcoming with information, insisting that Pixie would come to understand things in her own time.

"I heard you're living with Wheeler now," Trinity stated, a note of warning in her voice. "When did you decide to do something like that?"

The question caught Pixie off guard, serving one part of its purpose. The other was to change the subject and move away from the whole messy story about Pixie and her past. Trinity wanted Neo to know and had felt it was Pixie's place to tell him. Forcing the answer out of her hadn't been part of her plan but it had been the only way to get Pixie to talk. She, like many others, Trinity included, didn't like talking about her past but Trinity hadn't felt right telling Neo, herself. It seemed more ethical if Pixie told her own story, even if she didn't want to tell it.

"He started staying with me after we got home---after the Cypher and Hawk thing ---and it sort of became permanent," Pixie answered, her face a bright shade of red. "Because he was the only person in Zion who could help me control my panic attacks."

Pixie really and truly hoped Neo and Trinity understood what she was talking about so she didn't have to dredge up any more details than she had to. The whole situation that had led Wheeler to living with her had been an ugly, painful one that had left her--- and everyone else who managed to scrape through it ---with both physical and mental scars. The panic attacks were just her body's way of dealing with what had happened.

The young woman knew that wars were ugly and bad things tended to happen. She'd learned as much from her instructors at the Academy and from her short time on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. What had happened to them was different though. It was a whole other version of the ugly face of war.

Thinking that there was one point that she had to clarify, Pixie, quickly added, "Wheeler and I are just really playing house, that's all. We're not doing anything crazy."

"This is the Wheeler we met on the _Shatterpoint_, right?" Neo wanted to know.

Neo vaguely remembered a Wheeler starting a fight with Hawk because he'd said something about Pixie. What he remembered about Wheeler was that he was a boy who looked about Pixie's age, and who'd spent much of his time at Pixie's side. Pixie had been hurt then--- Hawk had beaten her up with a metal tray or so the story went ---and Wheeler had spent most of his time keeping an eye on Pixie.

He also thought he'd seen the same boy walking down to Hawk's trial with Pixie and leaving with her afterwards. All in all, Neo couldn't say he knew Wheeler as well as Pixie did. It was just one of those passing things, how he knew Wheeler.

"Yeah, that's him," Pixie stated, coming to the realization that she kind of missed Wheeler at times like these "There's only one Wheeler in Zion, as far as I can figure it."

That was one of those strange things, according to her friend Aisling anyway, that Pixie took the time to try and figure out. There were only so many names one could pick as their aliases before people started reusing names. Pixie figured the only exception to that rule would be individuals who'd chosen names based out of extremely rare mythological sources. Other than that, there had to be repeats on certain names. After all, she couldn't have been the only person to decide that "Pixie" sounded like a really good hacker's name.

Pixie couldn't be one hundred percent sure, of course, since she'd never actually run into another person calling themselves "Pixie". There'd been a "Fay" and a "Fata" in one of her classes in Zion and an instructor for the younger children named Sprite but never another "Pixie." Maybe no one thought of using her name or, if there had been another Pixie, she was no longer around.

The young woman, the current Pixie as it were, made a mental note to do some looking up when they got back. That might prove to be interesting for her and amusing for her friends if they were home when she went on her Archive search.

"Wheeler better not do anything stupid," Trinity pointed out. "Otherwise he's going to have to answer to me."

Pixie softly giggled, a sound Neo found strange for some reason where Pixie was concerned, and stated, "He'd never do anything stupid but, if he did, I think Chian might have said it was her right as my big sister to have at him first. I'm sorry."

"Chian is from the _Logos_," Trinity pointed out, for Neo's benefit. "Real big mouthed woman who drives my poor brother up the walls of his ship, or so he tells me."

The young woman knew she should have disagreed with that assessment since Chian was her friend and all but Pixie found she was inclined to agree with Trinity's assessment. Chian was the type of person who got into everyone's business no matter if they wanted her there or not. Hawk hadn't liked that about Chian, the fact she got into everyone's business.

Though Pixie didn't always enjoy having her life meddled in, she'd accepted the fact Chian was going to meddle whether she wanted her to or not. It was just how Chian was just like how Pixie, herself, was quiet. Even with all of her prying, oddly enough, Chian rarely ever got to the truth of the situation between her and Wheeler. She knew only surface things, just like everyone else.

Though she was many things, the fact she was far worldlier than Pixie made the young woman feel Chian was a good friend to have. It had been Chian who pointed out that Wheeler had feelings for her and pointed out the fact she might have the same feelings for Wheeler. She was the person Pixie had run to after Wheeler first kissed her. Chian hadn't exactly helped Pixie but she'd given her just enough information to start her on the right track for dealing with the aftermath of said kiss.

"I remember her," Neo quipped. "She talked a lot and to everyone after we got rescued."

"She always talks a lot," Pixie pointed out with a shrug. "That's just of Chian, as I see it. She talks a lot and I don't talk at all, that's how come we get along I guess."

A thoughtful look crossing her face, Pixie corrected, "Actually all of my friends are more talkative than I am. Maybe that's just how I get along with everyone…they talk and I listen."

The fact Pixie could be involved in a conversation but not say anything during the course of the conversation was something that drove her friend Aisling crazy. It had gotten Pixie teased a fair few times but it wasn't that bad kind of teasing. It was more the good natured sort of teasing between friends. It was always one sided, though, since Pixie never teased her friends back. She always felt that was sort of mean so she said nothing.

"You're talking quite a bit tonight," Trinity pointed out. "Would your friends have something to say about that?"

All Pixie could offer as an answer was a tired shrug and a question, "Not to bring things back to not-as-happy-topics but what brought on the questions about my past all of a sudden?"

Neo looked more than a little sheepish, which made Pixie laugh, and answered, "I was thinking about that puzzle program I ran with you. Remember? The one where you gave me that history lesson and called me a 'freak' because of what I could do."

Pixie's eyes opened a bit wider and she almost started to giggle. She hadn't thought Neo would remember that one single day during his extensive training. It was just one day during the seemingly endless days before he became the One. It was just one silly program that she's gotten involved in only because she'd had a bad day dealing with Hawk.

"I guess I owed you that answer," she admitted. "And I'd still love to take you for a run through one of my new puzzle programs."

"Actually," Trinity cut in. "I have a program for all of us to try. It's an oldie I want to take you though, Pix. I think you'll enjoy it."


End file.
